tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/csiro-2705/articlesCSIRO – The Conversation2017-11-30T03:15:38Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/883142017-11-30T03:15:38Z2017-11-30T03:15:38ZIt's 30 years since scientists first warned of climate threats to Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196933/original/file-20171129-29160-uqfgoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Barossa Valley in 1987 – the year that Australians (winemakers included) received their first formal warning of climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phillip Capper/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Keen students of climate politics might recognise November 30 as the anniversary of the opening of the historic <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-paris-what-was-really-achieved-at-the-cop21-climate-summit-and-what-next-52320">Paris climate summit</a> two years ago. But you might not know that today also marks 30 years since Australian scientists first officially sounded the alarm over climate change, at a conference hailed as the dawn of the ongoing effort to forecast and monitor the future climate of our continent. </p>
<p>November 30, 1987, marked the start of the inaugural <a href="http://www.cawcr.gov.au/projects/Climatechange/impact/policy-relevant-science/conferences/">GREENHOUSE conference</a> hosted by Monash University and attended by 260 delegates. The five-day meeting was convened as part of a new federal government plan in response to the burgeoning global awareness of the impending danger of global warming. </p>
<p>The conference’s convenor, the then CSIRO senior research scientist Graeme Pearman, had approached some 100 researchers in the months leading up to the conference. He gave them a scenario of likely climate change for Australia for the next 30 to 50 years, developed with his CSIRO colleague Barrie Pittock, and asked them to forecast the implications for agriculture, farming and other sectors.</p>
<p>As a result, the conference gave rise to a book called <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ca6uOGYQsHcC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;source=gbs_ge_summary_r&amp;cad=0#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false">Greenhouse: Planning for Climate Change</a>, which outlined rainfall changes, sea-level rise and other physical changes that are now, three decades on, all too familiar. As the contents page reveals, it also tackled impacts on society – everything from insurance to water planning, mosquito-borne diseases, and even ski fields.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/after-bonn-5-things-to-watch-for-in-the-coming-year-of-global-climate-policy-88260">After Bonn, 5 things to watch for in the coming year of global climate policy</a>
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<p>Internationally, awareness of global warming had already been building for a couple of decades, and intensifying for a couple of years. While the ozone hole was hogging global headlines, a United Nations scientific meeting in Villach, Austria, in 1985 had issued a <a href="http://docs.niwa.co.nz/library/public/nzmstic203.pdf">statement</a> warning of the dangers posed by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.</p>
<p>Pearman wasn’t at that meeting, but he was familiar with the problem. As he <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ca6uOGYQsHcC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;source=gbs_ge_summary_r&amp;cad=0#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false">wrote after the 1987 conference</a>, the strength of the Villach statement was “hardly a surprise, as recent evidence had suggested more strongly than ever that climatic change is now probable on timescales of decades”.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the <a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/cabinet/by-year/1984-85/science.aspx">Commission for the Future</a>, founded by the then federal science minister <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Jones_(Australian_politician)">Barry Jones</a>, was seeking a cause célèbre. The <a href="https://www.science.org.au/">Australian Academy of Science</a> organised a dinner of scientists to suggest possible scientific candidates.</p>
<p>The commission’s chair, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Adams">Phillip Adams</a>, recalls that problems such as nuclear war, genetic modification, artificial intelligence, were all proposed. Finally, though: </p>
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<p>…the last bloke to talk was right at the far end of the table. Very quiet gentleman… He said, ‘You’re all wrong – it’s the dial in my laboratory, and the laboratories of my colleagues around the world.’ He said, ‘Every day, we see the needle going up, because of what we call the greenhouse effect.‘</p>
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<h2>Summit success</h2>
<p>The GREENHOUSE 87 conference was hailed as a great success, creating new scientific networks and momentum. It was what we academics like to call a “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13662716.2015.1038098?journalCode=ciai20">field-configuring event</a>”. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ojTyqdR2vMEC&amp;pg=PA25&amp;lpg=PA25&amp;dq=New+Scientist+%22the+greenhouse+project%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=W7xznqFF2d&amp;sig=YAqvoxBo2-DJSn1BxSMBea2-gdo&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjb44iBxsPXAhUBLMAKHeoHDy0Q6AEIODAD#v=onepage&amp;q=New%20Scientist%20%22the%20greenhouse%20project%22&amp;f=false">British magazine New Scientist covered</a> the conference, while the Australian media reported on <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122413300?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FC%2Ftitle%2F11%2F1987%2F12%2F01%2Fpage%2F13019270%2Farticle%2F122413300">Jones’s opening speech</a>, the <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122413349?searchTerm=Sea-level%20rise%20seen%20as%20threat%20to%20littoral&amp;searchLimits=">problems of sea-level rise</a>, and warnings of <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122414542?searchTerm=Scientists%20warn%20of%20floods%2C%20fire%2C%20cyclones%20and%20disease&amp;searchLimits=">floods, fire, cyclones and disease</a></p>
<p>The GREENHOUSE conferences have continued ever since. After a sporadic first couple of decades, the meetings have been held biennally around the country since 2005; the latest was in <a href="http://www.cawcr.gov.au/projects/Climatechange/impact/policy-relevant-science/conferences/">Hobart in 2015</a>, as there wasn’t a 2017 edition.</p>
<h2>What happened next?</h2>
<p>The Greenhouse Project helped to spark and channel huge public interest in and concern about climate change in the late 1980s. But politicians fumbled their response, producing a weak National Greenhouse Response Strategy in 1992. </p>
<p>The Commission for the Future was privatised, the federal government declined to fund a follow-up to the Greenhouse Project, and a new campaign group called Greenhouse Action Australia could not sustain itself. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the scientists kept doing what scientists do: observing, measuring, communicating, refining. Pittock produced many more books and articles. Pearman spoke to Paul Keating’s cabinet in 1994 while it briefly pondered the introduction of a carbon tax. He retired in 2004, having been reprimanded and asked to resign, ironically enough for <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/scientists-bitter-over-interference/2006/02/12/1139679479548.html">speaking out about climate change</a>.</p>
<p>As I’ve <a href="https://theconversation.com/march-for-science-after-decades-of-climate-attacks-its-high-time-76041">written previously on The Conversation</a>, Australian policymakers have been well served by scientists, but have sadly taken little real notice. And lest all the blame be put onto the Coalition, let’s remember that one chief scientific adviser, Penny Sackett, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/gillard-never-met-chief-scientific-adviser-penny-sackett-before-she-quit/news-story/01d7037b66ae816d3e825db5efffe9cc">quit mid-term</a> in 2011, when Labor was in government. She has never said exactly why, but barely met Kevin Rudd and never met his successor Julia Gillard.</p>
<p>Our problem is not the scientists. It’s not the science. It’s the politics. And it’s not (just) the politicians, it’s the ability (or inability) of citizens’ groups to put the policymakers under sustained and irresistible pressure, to create the new institutions we need for the “<a href="http://sei-us.org/Publications_PDF/SEI-Science-LoomingGlobalScaleFailures-09.pdf">looming global-scale failures</a>” we face.</p>
<h2>A South Australian coda</h2>
<p>While researching this article, I stumbled across the following fact. Fourteen years and a day before the Greenhouse 87 conference had begun, <a href="http://biography.senate.gov.au/jessop-donald-scott/">Don Jessop</a>, a Liberal senator for South Australia, made <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22hansard80%2Fhansards80%2F1973-11-29%2F0155%22">this statement</a> in parliament:</p>
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<p>It is quite apparent to world scientists that the silent pollutant, carbon dioxide, is increasing in the atmosphere and will cause us great concern in the future. Other pollutants from conventional fuels are proliferating other gases in the atmosphere, not the least of these being the sulphurous gases which will be causing emphysema and other such health problems if we persist with this type of energy source. Of course, I am putting a case for solar energy. Australia is a country that can well look forward to a very prosperous future if it concentrates on solar energy right now.</p>
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<p>That was 44 years ago. No one can say we haven’t been warned.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Hudson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Three decades since the GREENHOUSE 87 conference, credited as kickstarting public awareness of climate change in Australia, how far have we come, and how far do we have left to go in appreciating the risks?Marc Hudson, PhD Candidate, Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/880832017-11-27T19:08:51Z2017-11-27T19:08:51ZFifty years ago Jocelyn Bell discovered pulsars and changed our view of the universe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196451/original/file-20171127-2004-mbwiv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=408%2C229%2C2555%2C1760&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">CSIRO Parkes radio telescope has discovered around half of all known pulsars. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wayne England</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A pulsar is a small, spinning star – a giant ball of neutrons, left behind after a normal star has died in a fiery explosion. </p>
<p>With a diameter of only 30 km, the star spins up to hundreds of times a second, while sending out a beam of radio waves (and sometimes other radiation, such as X-rays). When the beam is pointed in our direction and into our telescopes, we see a pulse.</p>
<p>2017 marks 50 years since pulsars were discovered. In that time, we have found more than 2,600 pulsars (mostly in the Milky Way), and used them to hunt for low-frequency gravitational waves, to determine the structure of our galaxy and to test the general theory of relativity. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/at-last-weve-found-gravitational-waves-from-a-collapsing-pair-of-neutron-stars-85528">At last, we've found gravitational waves from a collapsing pair of neutron stars</a>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">What is a pulsar?</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The discovery</h2>
<p>In mid-1967, when thousands of people were enjoying the summer of love, a young PhD student at the University of Cambridge in the UK was helping to build a telescope.</p>
<p>It was a poles-and-wires affair – what astronomers call a “dipole array”. It covered a bit less than two hectares, the area of 57 tennis courts. </p>
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<span class="caption">Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered the first pulsar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>By July it was built. The student, Jocelyn Bell (now <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/jocelyn-bell-burnell-9206018">Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell</a>), became responsible for running it and analysing the data it churned out. The data came in the form of pen-on-paper chart records, more than 30 metres of them each day. Bell analysed them by eye.</p>
<p>What she found – a little bit of “<a href="https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/linesofthought/artifacts/bell-burnell/">scruff</a>” on the chart records – has gone down in history. </p>
<p>Like most discoveries, it took place over time. But there was a turning point. On November 28, 1967, Bell and her supervisor, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1974/hewish-bio.html">Antony Hewish</a>, were able to capture a “fast recording” – that is, a detailed one – of one of the strange signals. </p>
<p>In this she could see for the first time that the “scruff” was actually a train of pulses spaced by one-and-a-third seconds. Bell and Hewish had discovered pulsars.</p>
<p>But this wasn’t immediately obvious to them. Following Bell’s observation they worked for two months to eliminate mundane explanations for the signals. </p>
<p>Bell also found another three sources of pulses, which helped to scotch some rather more exotic explanations, such as the idea that the signals came from “little green men” in extraterrestrial civilisations. The <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/217709a0">discovery paper</a> appeared in Nature on February 24, 1968.</p>
<p>Later, Bell <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11941453/Female-physicist-overlooked-for-Nobel-Prize-finally-receives-recognition-as-Woman-of-the-Year.html">missed out</a> when Hewish and his colleague Sir Martin Ryle were awarded the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics. </p>
<h2>A pulsar on ‘the pineapple’</h2>
<p>CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope in Australia made its first observation of a pulsar in 1968, later made famous by appearing (along with the Parkes telescope) on the first Australian $50 note. </p>
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<span class="caption">Australia’s first $50 note featured the Parkes telescope and a pulsar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Fifty years later, Parkes has found more than half of the known pulsars. The University of Sydney’s Molonglo Telescope also played a central role, and they both remain active in finding and timing pulsars today.</p>
<p>Internationally, one of the most exciting new instruments on the scene is China’s Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope, or <a href="http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-blogs/astronomy-space-david-dickinson/fast-worlds-largest-radio-telescope-open/">FAST</a>. FAST has recently found several new pulsars, confirmed by the Parkes telescope and a team of CSIRO astronomers working with their Chinese colleagues.</p>
<h2>Why look for pulsars?</h2>
<p>We want to understand what pulsars are, how they work, and how they fit into the general population of stars. The extreme cases of pulsars – those that are super fast, super slow, or extremely massive – help to limit the possible models for how pulsars work, telling us more about the structure of matter at ultra-high densities. To find these extreme cases, we need to find lots of pulsars. </p>
<p>Pulsars often orbit companion stars in binary systems, and the nature of these companions helps us understand the formation history of the pulsars themselves. We’ve made good progress with the “what” and “how” of pulsars but there are still unanswered questions.</p>
<p>As well as understanding pulsars themselves, we also use them as a clock. For example, pulsar timing is being pursued as a way to detect the background rumble of low-frequency gravitational waves throughout the universe.</p>
<p>Pulsars have also been used to measure the structure of our Galaxy, by looking at the way their signals are altered as they travel through denser regions of material in space.</p>
<p>Pulsars are also one of the finest tools we have for testing Einstein’s theory of general relativity. </p>
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<a href="http://theconversation.com/explainer-einsteins-theory-of-general-relativity-3481">Explainer: Einstein's Theory of General Relativity</a>
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<p>This theory has survived 100 years of the most sophisticated tests astronomers have been able throw at it. But it doesn’t play nicely with our other most successful theory of how the universe works, <a href="https://theconversation.com/einstein-vs-quantum-mechanics-and-why-hed-be-a-convert-today-27641">quantum mechanics</a>, so it must have a tiny flaw somewhere. Pulsars help us to try and understand this problem. </p>
<p>What keeps pulsar astronomers up at night (literally!) is the hope of finding a pulsar in orbit around a black hole. This is the most extreme system we can imagine for testing general relativity. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jocelyn Bell Burnell describes how she discovered pulsars.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Finally, pulsars have some more down-to-earth applications. We’re using them as a teaching tool in our <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Astronomy/Astronomy-education-programs/PULSE-at-Parkes?ref=/CSIRO/Website/Education/Programs/Pulse-at-Parkes">PULSE@Parkes program</a>, in which students control the Parkes telescope over the Internet and use it to observe pulsars. This program has reached over 1,700 students, in Australia, Japan, China, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and South Africa. </p>
<p>Pulsars also offer promise as a navigation system for guiding craft travelling through deep space. In 2016 China launched a satellite, <a href="http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/xpnav-1.htm">XPNAV-1</a>, carrying a navigation system that uses periodic X-ray signals from certain pulsars.</p>
<p>Pulsars have changed our our understanding of the universe, and their true importance is still unfolding.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Hobbs receives funding from the Australia Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dick Manchester has received funding from the ARC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Johnston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In mid 1967, PhD student Jocelyn Bell at Cambridge University was helping to build a telescope. She went on to discover a little bit of "scruff" - the first evidence of a pulsar.George Hobbs, Team leader for the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array project, CSIRODick Manchester, CSIRO Fellow, CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science, CSIROSimon Johnston, Senior research scientist, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851762017-10-04T19:13:30Z2017-10-04T19:13:30ZThe oil and gas sector needs to diversify if it wants to prosper<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188725/original/file-20171004-6753-1sycgxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Business as usual is not an option.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One does not have to look far to see signs that the oil and gas industry has a bumpy road ahead. Demand might stay high for decades, but given the dizzying pace of technological change, who would bet on that?</p>
<p>Take the recent pledges by India, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40518293">France</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/25/britain-to-ban-sale-of-all-diesel-and-petrol-cars-and-vans-from-2040">Britain</a>, and China to phase out petrol and diesel vehicles. Or the plummeting costs of grid-scale solar power, rapidly becoming <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Do-business/Futures/Reports/Low-Emissions-Technology-Roadmap">cheaper than fossil-fuelled electricity</a>.</p>
<p>These developments should cause oil and gas companies to think very carefully about their next move. Big investments in natural gas globally, made on the assumption that gas is a bridge to a clean energy future, may fall flat because renewables are developing so swiftly.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that oil and gas companies need to start planning for a low-carbon future and embrace the opportunities it presents. One approach is to diversify their products and embrace renewable energy, one of four strategies that CSIRO has identified in its industry-led <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Do-business/Futures/Reports/Oil-and-Gas">Oil and Gas Roadmap</a> that outlines some of the future directions the industry might take. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/big-oils-offshore-scramble-is-risky-business-all-round-42479">Big oil's offshore scramble is risky business all round</a>
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<p>With 40% of companies involved in the exploration and production of petroleum <a href="https://www.dnvgl.com/oilgas/industry-outlook-report/short-term-agility-long-term-resilience.html">likely to move away from oil and gas in 2017</a>, solar photovoltaics and energy storage offer alternative avenues in which oil and gas companies can invest.</p>
<p>Renewables can be integrated into operations to reduce both the cost and the carbon intensity of operations. In the longer term, these technologies could help energy companies to develop more sophisticated offerings. For instance, hybrid solar and gas <a href="https://arena.gov.au/news/moveable-solar-power-shifts-closer-to-commercial-reality/">microgrids</a> could be sold to developing nations, allowing them to <a href="https://theconversation.com/developing-countries-can-prosper-without-increasing-emissions-84044">leapfrog</a> from energy poverty into clean, cheap distributed energy for all, effectively skipping expensive, centralised electricity grid infrastructure.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Oil and Gas roadmap.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Gas-powered ships</h2>
<p>Two more strategic opportunities focus on expanding the potential of the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel: natural gas. </p>
<p>For example, global demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) for transport is expected to grow fourfold to 100 million tonnes a year by 2030, a prime target being <a href="http://www.afr.com/business/energy/gas/shipping-to-become-major-new-sector-for-lng-shell-20161101-gsfw74">maritime shipping</a>. Meeting this LNG demand could open up a valuable market for Australia.</p>
<p>Another opportunity lies in the creation of higher-value products. Natural gas can be converted to many refined products that can fetch higher margins in the market, including diesel and other chemicals such as methanol and dimethyl ether.</p>
<p>More investment is needed to make conversion technology economically competitive, but it would be a wise investment, especially in light of Australia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/running-on-empty-australias-risky-approach-to-oil-supplies-23619">lack of domestic strategic fuel reserves</a>.</p>
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<a href="http://theconversation.com/running-on-empty-australias-risky-approach-to-oil-supplies-23619">Running on empty: Australia's risky approach to oil supplies</a>
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<p>Hydrogen fuel is another possibility for Australian resource companies. It can be produced from gas, but in the future hydrogen fuel could also be manufactured by solar-powered electrolysis of water. Both would be good options, given Australia’s abundance of gas and sunlight. </p>
<p>Investments will be needed to improve the production and transport economics of hydrogen, including the development of efficient technologies that can <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-11/hydrogen-breakthrough-could-fuel-%20renewable-energy-%20export-boom/8518916">convert hydrogen carriers (like ammonia) to hydrogen at the point of use</a>.</p>
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<span class="caption">Smarter fuel options.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CSIRO</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Our roadmap also suggests other ways for companies to get involved in the energy transition, by becoming more efficient, less wasteful, and more productive.</p>
<p>Advanced environmental solutions point to ways to improve water quality and reuse, reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions (including sequestering carbon dioxide, controlling fugitive emissions, and finding alternatives to flaring), and finding the best ways to decommission assets like wells and offshore platforms after their useful life is over.</p>
<p>The industry needs to be much more efficient in exploring and producing oil and gas so that the life of existing assets can be lengthened, often using less environmentally damaging approaches such as waterless fracturing and <a href="http://research.csiro.au/oilandgas/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2015/10/Enhanced-oil-recovery-2015.pdf">reservoir rejuvenation using microbes</a>. Robots and artificial intelligence could also help to improve efficiency and safety.</p>
<p>The oil and gas sector has an important role to play in the future of the energy sector, but that role is changing. Companies need to be proactive to remain relevant. If they pursue some of the opportunities outlined here, they will help ensure they stay viable into the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85176/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jerad A. Ford has previously received research funding and scholarships from the UQ Centre for Coal Seam Gas while a student and post-doc researcher at the University of Queensland Business School. </span></em></p>A new CSIRO roadmap outlines the options for oil and gas companies to keep pace with the clean energy transition, including solar-powered hydrogen fuel production.Jerad A. Ford, Manager - Strategic Advisory, CSIRO Futures, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/846782017-09-26T03:03:22Z2017-09-26T03:03:22ZCollecting satellite data Australia wants: a new direction for Earth observation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187464/original/file-20170925-4607-jh1jba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">NovaSAR-S will image Earth in all weather conditions, both day and night (computer generated image). </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SSTL</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia – for the first time - will soon have the power to task an Earth imaging satellite in orbit. We’ll be able to collect imagery where we need it, and downlink the data directly into Australian ground stations.</p>
<p>CSIRO, under an agreement with Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (<a href="https://www.sstl.co.uk/">SSTL</a>), has secured a 10% share of “tasking and acquisition” time on the <a href="http://www.sstl.co.uk/Products/SSTL-Platforms-range">NovaSAR satellite</a>, due for launch later this year.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/australia-relies-on-data-from-earth-observation-satellites-but-our-access-is-high-risk-82985">Australia relies on data from Earth observation satellites, but our access is high risk</a>
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<p>For the next seven years, Australia will have priority in directing the satellite to collect imagery every time it passes over our region. We will also be able to downlink the data for our own use, to an Australian receiving station, and share it with our research partners.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Collecting data over Australia, for Australian uses.</span></figcaption>
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<p>This will be a valuable asset for Australian scientists. We will learn how best to operate such a space capability to our own advantage, plus we will develop new time-critical downstream uses for the data. These include supporting large-scale disaster response efforts, and other major events where fast access to data is vital for effective decision-making. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.sstl.co.uk/Products/SSTL-Platforms-range">NovaSAR</a> will be operated in parallel with CSIRO’s other national facilities, such as the <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Facilities/Marine-National-Facility/RV-Investigator">RV Investigator marine research vessel</a> and the <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Facilities/ATNF">Australia Telescope National Facility</a> – but in space.</p>
<h2>All-seeing satellite</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.sstl.co.uk/Products/SSTL-Platforms-range">NovaSAR</a> is a brand new satellite. It can image Earth in all weather conditions, both day and night, using S-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (or SAR), providing high quality radar images of Earth of between 6m to 30m spatial resolution.</p>
<p>This dual capability is especially useful for land, coastal and marine mapping applications in cloudy tropical areas. It provides us with the ability to track the presence and movement of shipping in our regional waters.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187493/original/file-20170926-19571-13b434p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
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<span class="caption">Testing of NovaSAR at Airbus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Airbus Defence and Space</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p><a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/radar/about/what_is_radar.shtml">Radar</a> was invented in the mid-20th century. While initially restricted to the military, it’s now applied for many civilian uses. </p>
<p>Circulating Earth at an altitude of about 600km, NovaSAR will generate radio microwaves and measure the strength of their return (that is, how they bounce back from the Earth’s surface). This will enable it to build an image of objects and structures at ground level.</p>
<p>The main advantage of this new initiative is that we can decide where on Earth we want NovaSAR to collect hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of Earth imagery per day, with highest priority for the Australian region. We will send programming instructions to the satellite via a computer terminal based in Australia that is connected to SSTL’s operations centre in the UK.</p>
<p>The satellite will then be tasked to point its radar at our chosen areas, collect this data, then send it directly down to ground receiving stations based in Australia while passing overhead.</p>
<h2>It’s all in the analytics</h2>
<p>Last year’s report on <a href="https://d28rz98at9flks.cloudfront.net/83102/83102_EOS_Report.pdf">Australian Government Earth Observation Data Requirements to 2025</a> found that Australia’s Earth observation data storage requirements are expected to increase dramatically over the next decade. This will support the data needs of more than 140 government programs with a cumulative storage capacity requirement of approximately 44 PetaBytes by 2025.</p>
<p>The Open Data Cube (<a href="http://www.datacube.org.au/">ODC</a>)) platform - developed by <a href="http://www.ga.gov.au/">Geoscience Australia</a>, CSIRO and the <a href="http://nci.org.au/">National Computational Infrastructure</a> facility and international partners – will house and process petabytes of satellite Earth observation data from multiple sensors.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/yes-australia-will-have-a-space-agency-what-does-this-mean-experts-respond-84588">Yes, Australia will have a space agency. What does this mean? Experts respond</a>
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<p>The ODC is built from open-source software and is used as the base technology for the new <a href="http://www.ga.gov.au/about/projects/geographic/digital-earth-australia">Digital Earth Australia</a> program, plus 20 emerging datacubes around the world, designed to use Earth observation data and analytics more effectively.</p>
<h2>Focus on Australia</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-relies-on-data-from-earth-observation-satellites-but-our-access-is-high-risk-82985">Earth observation data</a> today is no longer just a research activity. It informs policy, helps manage natural environments, assists recovery from major catastrophes and generates agricultural and industrial development opportunities.</p>
<p>NovaSAR will allow a new level of control over Earth observation data in and for Australia.</p>
<p>With the recent announcement that <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-australia-will-have-a-space-agency-what-does-this-mean-experts-respond-84588">Australia will develop a space agency</a>, it’s an exciting time to work in the space sector.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84678/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As a scientific and industrial research organisation, on average CSIRO receives approximately 80% of its funding from government, and 20% from targeted industry sources. </span></em></p>Australia will be able to guide the Earth observation satellite "NovaSAR" as it passes over our region - giving us a new level of control over the data we need to solve local problems.Alex Held, Principal Research Scientist, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/794272017-07-24T09:18:41Z2017-07-24T09:18:41ZRising carbon dioxide is making the world's plants more water-wise<p>Land plants are absorbing 17% more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere now than 30 years ago, our <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00114-5">research published today</a> shows. Equally extraordinarily, our study also shows that the vegetation is hardly using any extra water to do it, suggesting that global change is causing the world’s plants to grow in a more water-efficient way. </p>
<p>Water is the most precious resource needed for plants to grow, and our research suggests that vegetation is becoming much better at using it in a world in which CO₂ levels <a href="https://theconversation.com/global-stocktake-shows-the-43-greenhouse-gases-driving-global-warming-77796">continue to rise</a>. </p>
<p>The ratio of carbon uptake to water loss by ecosystems is what we call “water use efficiency”, and it is one of the most important variables when studying these ecosystems.</p>
<p>Our confirmation of a global trend of increasing water use efficiency is a rare piece of good news when it comes to the consequences of global environmental change. It will strengthen plants’ vital role as global carbon sinks, improve food production, and might boost water availability for the well-being of society and the natural world. </p>
<p>Yet more efficient water use by the world’s plants will not solve our current or future water scarcity problems. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174634/original/file-20170620-22092-g9flkd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174634/original/file-20170620-22092-g9flkd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">Changes in global terrestrial uptake of carbon dioxide, water use efficiency and ecosystem evapotranspiration during 1982-2011.</span>
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<h2>Boosting carbon uptake</h2>
<p>Plants growing in today’s higher-CO₂ conditions can take up more carbon – the so-called CO₂ fertilisation effect. This is the main reason why the terrestrial biosphere has taken up 17% more carbon over the past 30 years. </p>
<p>The enhanced carbon uptake is consistent with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rising-carbon-dioxide-is-greening-the-earth-but-its-not-all-good-news-58282">global greening trend</a> observed by satellites, and the growing global land carbon sink which <a href="http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/index.htm">removes about one-third</a> of all CO₂ emissions generated by human activities.</p>
<p>Increasing carbon uptake typically comes at a cost. To let CO₂ in, plants have to open up pores called stomata in their leaves, which in turn allows water to sneak out. Plants thus need to strike a balance between taking up carbon to build new leaves, stems and roots, while minimising water loss in the process. This has led to sophisticated adaptations that has allowed many plant species to conquer a range of arid environments. </p>
<p>One such adaptation is to close the stomata slightly to allow CO₂ to enter with less water getting out. Under increasing atmospheric CO₂, the overall result is that CO₂ uptake increases while water consumption does not. This is exactly what we have found on a global scale in our new study. In fact, we found that rising CO₂ levels are causing the world’s plants to become more water-wise, almost everywhere, whether in dry places or wet ones. </p>
<h2>Growth hotspots</h2>
<p>We used a combination of plot-scale water flux and atmospheric measurements, and satellite observations of leaf properties, to develop and test a new water use efficiency model. The model enables us to scale up from leaf water use efficiency anywhere in the world to the entire globe.</p>
<p>We found that across the globe, boreal and tropical forests are particularly good at increasing ecosystem water use efficiency and uptake of CO₂. That is due in large part to the CO₂ fertilisation effect and the increase in the total amount of leaf surface area. </p>
<p>Importantly, both types of forests are critical in limiting the rise in atmospheric CO₂ levels. Intact tropical forest <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/988">removes more atmospheric CO₂</a> than any other type of forest, and the boreal forests of the planet’s far north hold <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008GB003327/abstract">vast amounts of carbon</a> particularly in their organic soils.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, for the semi-arid ecosystems of the world, increased water savings are a big deal. We found that Australian ecosystems, for example, are increasing their carbon uptake, especially in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ecocheck-australias-vast-majestic-northern-savannas-need-more-care-59897">northern savannas</a>. This trend may not have been possible without an increase in ecosystem water use efficiency. </p>
<p>Previous studies have also shown how increased water efficiency is <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50563/abstract">greening semi-arid regions</a> and may have contributed to an <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v509/n7502/full/nature13376.html">increase in carbon capture</a> in semi-arid ecosystems in Australia, Africa and South America.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176169/original/file-20170629-3154-1xr77xx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176169/original/file-20170629-3154-1xr77xx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">Trends in water use efficiency over 1982-2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CREDIT</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>It’s not all good news</h2>
<p>These trends will have largely positive outcomes for the plants and the animals (and humans) consuming them. Wood production, bioenergy and crop growth are (and will be) less water-intensive under climate change than they would be without increased vegetation water use efficiency.</p>
<p>But despite these trends, water scarcity will nevertheless continue to constrain carbon sinks, food production and socioeconomic development. </p>
<p>Some studies have suggested that the water savings could also lead to <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7157/edsumm/e070830-08.html">increased runoff</a> and therefore excess water availability. For dry Australia, however, <a href="http://www.biogeosciences.net/10/2011/2013/">more than half (64%)</a> of the rainfall returning to the atmosphere does not go through vegetation, but through direct soil evaporation. This reduces the potential benefit from increased vegetation water use efficiency and the possibility for more water flowing to rivers and reservoirs. In fact, a <a href="http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_19-10-2015-14-49-2">recent study</a> shows that while semi-arid regions in Australia are greening, they are also consuming more water, causing river flows to fall by 24-28%. </p>
<p>Our research confirms that plants all over the world are likely to benefit from these increased water savings. However, the question of whether this will translate to more water availability for conservation or for human consumption is much less clear, and will probably vary widely from region to region.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79427/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pep Canadell receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francis Chiew works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Commonwealth Government. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lei Cheng works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Commonwealth Government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lu Zhang works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Commonwealth Government. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ying-Ping Wang receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program.</span></em></p>The globe is greening as plants grow faster in response to rising carbon dioxide. But a new analysis shows they aren't using more water to do it - a rare piece of good news for our changing planet.Pep Canadell, CSIRO Scientist, and Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project, CSIROFrancis Chiew, Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIROLei Cheng, Postdoctoral research fellow, CSIROLu Zhang, Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIROYingping Wang, Chief research scientist, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/799242017-06-25T20:05:25Z2017-06-25T20:05:25ZSludge, snags, and surreal animals: life aboard a voyage to study the abyss<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175349/original/file-20170623-29738-17uu1u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The famous &quot;faceless fish&quot;, which garnered worldwide headlines when it was collected by the expedition.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rob Zugaro</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past five weeks I led a “<a href="https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/abyss-landing-%20page">voyage of discovery</a>”. That sounds rather pretentious in the 21st century, but it’s still true. My team, aboard the CSIRO managed research vessel, the <a href="http://www.csiro.au/RV-Investigator-virtual-tour/rv_investigator.html">Investigator</a>, has mapped and sampled an area of the planet that has never been surveyed before. </p>
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<span class="caption">The RV Investigator in port.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jerome Mallefet/FNRS</span></span>
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<p>Bizarrely, our ship was only 100km off Australia’s east coast, in the middle of a busy shipping lane. But our focus was not on the sea surface, or on the migrating whales or skimming albatross. We were surveying The Abyss – the very bottom of the ocean some 4,000m below the waves.</p>
<p>To put that into perspective, the <a href="http://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/place_naming/placename_search/extract?id=KWwGjzsETR">tallest mountain</a> on the Australian mainland is only 2,228m. Scuba divers are lucky to reach depths of 40m, while nuclear submarines dive to about 500m. We were aiming to put our cameras and sleds much, much deeper. Only since 2014, when the RV Investigator was commissioned, has Australia had the capacity to survey the deepest depths.</p>
<p>The months before the trip were frantic, with so much to organise: permits, freight, equipment, flights, medicals, legal agreements, safety procedures, visas, finance approvals, communication ideas, sampling strategies – all the tendrils of modern life (the thought “why am I doing this?” surfaced more than once). But remarkably, on May 15, we had 27 scientists from 14 institutions and seven countries, 11 technical specialists, and 22 crew converging on Launceston, and we were off.</p>
<h2>Rough seas</h2>
<p>Life at sea takes some adjustment. You work 12-hour shifts every day, from 2 o’clock to 2 o’clock, so it’s like suffering from jetlag. The ship was very stable, but even so the motion causes seasickness for the first few days. You sway down corridors, you have one-handed showers, and you feel as though you will be tipped out of bed. Many people go off coffee. The ship is “dry”, so there’s no well-earned beer at the end of a hard day. You wait days for bad weather to clear and then suddenly you are shovelling tonnes of mud through sieves in the middle of the night as you process samples dredged from the deep.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175338/original/file-20170623-21202-juh6u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175338/original/file-20170623-21202-juh6u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">Shifting through the mud of the abyss on the back deck.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jerome Mallefet/FNRS</span></span>
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<p>Surveying the abyss turns out to be far from easy. On our very first deployment off the eastern Tasmanian coast, our net was shredded on a rock at 2,500m, the positional beacon was lost, tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gear gone. It was no one’s fault; the offending rock was too small to pick up on our <a href="http://mnf.csiro.au/Vessel/Investigator-2014/Equipment/Marine-acoustics-seafloor-mapping-and-fisheries-acoustics.aspx">multibeam sonar</a>. Only day 1 and a new plan was required. Talented people fixed what they could, and we moved on.</p>
<p>I was truly surprised by the ruggedness of the seafloor. From the existing maps, I was expecting a gentle slope and muddy abyssal plain. Instead, our sonar revealed canyons, ridges, cliffs and massive rock slides – amazing, but a bit of a hindrance to my naive sampling plan.</p>
<p>But soon the marine animals began to emerge from our videos and samples, which made it all worthwhile. Life started to buzz on the ship. </p>
<h2>Secrets of the deep</h2>
<p>Like many people, scientists spend most of their working lives in front of a computer screen. It is really great to get out and actually experience the real thing, to see animals we have only read about in old books. The tripod fish, the <a href="https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/faceless-fish-looks-happier-and-heartier-it-did-1887">faceless fish</a>, the shortarse feeler fish (yes, really), red spiny crabs, worms and sea stars of all shapes and sizes, as well as animals that <a href="https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/beam-us-j%C3%A9r%C3%B4me">emit light</a> to ward off predators.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175329/original/file-20170623-27895-pqfrw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175329/original/file-20170623-27895-pqfrw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">A spiny red lithodid crab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rob Zugaro/Museums Victoria</span></span>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175333/original/file-20170623-21202-i5u60t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175333/original/file-20170623-21202-i5u60t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">The tripod fish uses its long spines to sit on the seafloor waiting for the next meal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rob Zugaro/Museums Victoria</span></span>
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<p>The level of public interest has been phenomenal. You may already have seen <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-30/researchers-drag-faceless-fish-up-from-the-abyss/8572634">some of the coverage</a>, which ranged from the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/06/15/533063615/explorers-probing-%20deep-sea-%20abyss-off-australias-coast-find-living-wonders">fascinated</a> to the amused – for some reason our discovery of <a href="http://mashable.com/2017/06/18/peanut-worm-looks-phallic/#GAkg8P.vh8qC">priapulid worms</a> was a big hit on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPgVtWDljcU">US late-night television</a>. In many ways all the publicity mirrored our first reactions to animals on the ship. “What is this thing?” “How amazing!”</p>
<p>The important scientific insights will come later. It will take a year or so to process all the data and accurately identify the samples. Describing all the new species will take even longer. All of the material has been carefully preserved and will be stored in museums and CSIRO collections around Australia for centuries. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175465/original/file-20170624-12633-l6b873.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175465/original/file-20170624-12633-l6b873.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">Scientists identifying microscopic animals onboard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Asher Flatt</span></span>
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<p>On a voyage of discovery, video footage is not sufficient, because we don’t know the animals. The modern biologist uses high-resolution microscopes and DNA evidence to describe the new species and understand their place in the ecosystem, and that requires actual samples.</p>
<p>So why bother studying the deep sea? First, it is important to understand that humanity is already having an impact down there. The oceans are changing. There wasn’t a day at sea when we didn’t bring up some rubbish from the seafloor – cans, bottles, plastic, rope, fishing line. There is also old debris from steamships, such as unburned coal and bits of <a href="http://www.ehow.com/info_12152358_causes-clinkers-coal-fired-boilers.html">clinker</a>, which looks like melted rock, formed in the boilers. Elsewhere in the oceans there are plans to mine precious metals from the deep sea.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175340/original/file-20170623-9385-g1pbck.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175340/original/file-20170623-9385-g1pbck.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rubbish found on the seafloor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rob Zugaro/Museums Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, Australia is the custodian of a vast amount of abyss. Our marine <a href="http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/dimensions/oceans-and-seas#heading-1">exclusive economic zone (EEZ)</a> is larger than the Australian landmass. The Commonwealth recently established a <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/topics/marine/marine-reserves">network of marine reserves</a> around Australia. Just like National Parks on land, these have been established to protect biodiversity in the long term. Australia’s <a href="https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/">Marine Biodiversity Hub</a>, which provided funds for this voyage, as been established by the Commonwealth Government to conduct research in the EEZ. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175336/original/file-20170623-27895-1dazxfj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175336/original/file-20170623-27895-1dazxfj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The newly mapped East Gippsland Commonwealth Marine Reserve, showing the rugged end of the Australian continental margin as it dips to the abyssal plain. The scale shows the depth in metres.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amy Nau/CSIRO</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our voyage mapped some of the marine reserves for the first time. Unlike parks on land, the reserves are not easy to visit. It was our aim to bring the animals of the Australian Abyss into public view.</p>
<p>We discovered that life in the deep sea is diverse and fascinating. Would I do it again? Sure I would. After a beer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim O&#39;Hara receives research funding from the National Environmental Science Programme&#39;s Marine Biodiversity Hub. </span></em></p>Surveying the bottom of the ocean turns out to be far from easy. But there was something wonderful about seeing animals we have only read about in old books.Tim O'Hara, Senior Curator of Marine Invertebrates, Museums VictoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/681682017-05-30T20:12:59Z2017-05-30T20:12:59ZThe science of taste, or why you choose fries over broccoli<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169413/original/file-20170515-6990-xxf5hq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It&#39;s in the genes why some people find broccoli unpleasantly bitter, but others barely flinch when eating it. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/338976938?src=objvRyCLN1HcmlLsvaT23g-1-38&amp;size=huge_jpg">from www.shutterstock.com </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most people say that if there is a healthy choice on a menu they will take it. But observations and <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40547-014-0025-9">research</a> show this is generally not the case.</p>
<p>Instead, people tend to make choices based on how food tastes. Typically, the more sugar, salt and fat in the food, the more we will like it. Genetics, experience and environment also influence our perception of food and the consumption choices we make.</p>
<p>Australians are <a href="https://theconversation.com/food-as-medicine-why-do-we-need-to-eat-so-many-vegetables-and-what-does-a-serve-actually-look-like-76149">still not eating</a> as healthily as they should, despite years of programs and publicity warning of the health impacts of poor diets.</p>
<p>But what if we could make healthier foods taste better and thus improve eating patterns?</p>
<p>To examine questions of food taste, flavour and digestion under controlled conditions, we have developed a <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/AF/Areas/Food/Making-healthier-foods/Virtual-mouth">computational model</a> of food mastication (chewing) and digestion. </p>
<p>We have also developed a kit to map genes that predict flavour preferences, and are measuring how proteins in saliva affect food flavour. </p>
<h2>A model to chew on</h2>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/116316268" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A less messy way to watch food being chewed - a computerised model.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How a person chews their food, mixes it with saliva and squeezes it with their tongue has a large impact on how it tastes. But eating is a complex process and is different for every person, and until recently was very difficult to measure and monitor. </p>
<p>Our model can simulate eating behaviour based on data from real people eating different foods. It shows how food products break down in the mouth and how components such as sugar and salt are transported to our taste receptors.</p>
<p>We are also modelling how food gets broken down in the stomach and what happens to it as it moves through the digestive tract. </p>
<p>This will help in the future development of food matched to an individual’s physiology, which can deliver nutrients at the ideal location and control the rate of digestion.</p>
<h2>Measuring genetic variation in taste</h2>
<p>It’s now clear that variation in genes influences whether people will like certain foods, and how much they will eat. </p>
<p>For example, the presence or absence of a particular form of a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17873857">gene involved in smell</a> determines whether an individual is <a href="https://genepi.qimr.edu.au/contents/p/staff/Knaapila_ChemSenses_MarchEPUB2012.pdf">sensitive to androstenone</a>, a molecule that generates the unpleasant flavour found in pork from male pigs. Individuals with a variant of this particular gene <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0035259">can detect androstenone</a> by sniffing pork. Androstenone sensitivity is <a href="https://academic.oup.com/chemse/article/40/7/481/400181/Global-Survey-of-Variation-in-a-Human-Olfactory">reported</a> to be much higher in Asian populations than in those of European descent. </p>
<p>Other genes are involved in determining preference or avoidance of bitter flavours. For example, a compound known as PROP (6-n-propylthiouracil) is commonly found in green vegetables such as broccoli, and contributes to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4853779/">creating a bitter taste</a>. People who have the gene for a bitter receptor known as TAS2R38 are able to taste the compound, either mildly or very strongly. Those without the gene for this receptor are unable to taste it. This explains why some people like their greens more than others.</p>
<p>The CSIRO is developing a genetic kit with the goal of predicting whether or not individuals will like particular foods. </p>
<p>Working with people in their own homes, we have tested and validated a “PROP kit” for detecting and rating bitterness intensity in food. Our preliminary analysis of DNA collected from test subjects’ saliva and cheek cells showed that those who could taste bitterness had the TAS2R38 bitter receptor, and those that could not taste bitterness did not have this receptor. The test also allowed us to predict which consumers were bitter tasters and which were non-tasters.</p>
<p>This sort of kit gives us an idea of why some people like their greens more than others. The kit will be further tested and validated in a much larger cohort of Australians of both Asian and European descent. </p>
<h2>Saliva can alter the taste of food</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12002816">Saliva is vital</a> in helping us eat food safely, and it lubricates and transports taste molecules from food to our taste buds. </p>
<p>Saliva contains an enzyme called <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/star.201000150/pdf">amylase</a>, which breaks down starch into sugars. If you’ve ever noticed that some children keep bread in their mouth for a long time, it’s because as the amylase in their saliva acts on the starch, more sugar is produced and the bread tastes sweeter.</p>
<p>There are <a href="http://www.nature.com/icb/journal/v59/n1/abs/icb19811a.html">other enzymes in saliva</a> that act on fat and protein, and control how we perceive food. The composition of saliva in each person is different. It changes throughout the day, and is influenced by what you eat, what exercise you have done, your mood, and even whether it is light or dark outside.</p>
<p>Proteomics (the study of proteins and their function) is an approach that can measure differences in the protein composition of different people’s saliva. The types and level of proteins and enzymes present in saliva <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/07388551.2012.687361">vary from person to person</a>, and this changes the way flavour is released from food in our mouth. </p>
<p>The bacteria that live in our mouths, part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/healthy-guts-are-swarming-with-bugs-so-what-do-they-do-65105">microbiome</a>, also have an influence. For example, <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf801873h">bacteria change the flavours of food</a> by increasing the production of molecules that create particular taste experiences. The types of bacteria that are present create a <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081110181811.htm">unique response</a> in each individual. </p>
<p>Research into individual food preferences – whether they be as a result of our genetics, saliva or the way we chew – may one day guide food manufacturers to produce healthier options of our everyday foods. </p>
<p>Hopefully this may contribute to consumers making better menu selections and decrease the number of food-related diseases currently affecting Australians.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68168/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ingrid Appelqvist does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Your genes, your saliva and the bacteria that live in your mouth all shape how food tastes and what you prefer to eat.Ingrid Appelqvist, Research Group Leader and Food R&D policy leader, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/774812017-05-22T19:58:13Z2017-05-22T19:58:13ZASKAP telescope speeds up the hunt for new Fast Radio Bursts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170086/original/file-20170519-12231-tzggyf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">ASKAP at night.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Alex Cherney/terrastro.com</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>They’re mysterious bursts of radio waves from space that are over in a fraction of a second. Fast Radio Bursts (<a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/fast-radio-bursts-6352">FRBs</a>) are thought to occur many thousands of times a day, but since their <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/318/5851/777.full">first detection</a> by the Parkes radio telescope a decade ago only 30 have been observed.</p>
<p>But once the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (<a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Facilities/ATNF/ASKAP">ASKAP</a>) joined the hunt we had our first new FRB after just three and half days of observing. This was soon followed by a further two FRBs. And the telescope is not even fully operational yet.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168889/original/file-20170511-32610-197o80x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168889/original/file-20170511-32610-197o80x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first FRB that ASKAP found. Bottom panel shows a grey scale image of what the FRB looks like. It’s less than 1 millisecond long and we detect it over a range of frequencies from 1,100 MHz to 1,400 MHz. The top panel shows what the FRB looks like when you add up all the frequency channels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ryan Shannon (CSIRO/Curtin University)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The fact that ASKAP detects FRBs so readily means it is now poised to tackle the big questions. </p>
<p>One of these is what causes an FRB in the first place. They are variously attributed by hard-nosed and self-respecting physicists to everything from <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-found-the-source-of-the-mystery-signals-at-the-dish-41523">microwave ovens</a>, to the accidental <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2124209-could-fast-radio-bursts-really-be-powering-alien-space-ships/">transmissions of extraterrestrials</a> making their first baby steps in interstellar exploration. </p>
<p>The astounding properties of these FRBs have so enthralled astronomers that, in the decade since their discovery, there are more theories than observed bursts.</p>
<h2>A distant flash</h2>
<p>FRBs are remarkable because they are outrageously bright in the radio spectrum yet appear extremely distant. As far as astronomers can tell, they come from a long way away - halfway across the observable universe or more. Because of that, whatever makes FRBs must be pretty special, unlike anything astronomers have ever seen. </p>
<p>What has astronomers really excited is the fossil record imprinted on each burst by the matter it encounters during its multibillion-year crossing of the universe. </p>
<p>Matter in space exerts a tiny amount drag on the radio waves as they hurtle across the universe, like the air drags on a fast-moving plane. But here’s the handy bit: the longer the radio waves, the more the drag. </p>
<p>By the time the radio waves arrive at our telescopes, the shorter waves arrive just before the longer ones. By measuring the time delay between the short waves and the longer ones, astronomers can work out how much matter a given burst has travelled through on its journey from whatever made it, to our telescope.</p>
<p>If we can find enough bursts, we can work out how much ordinary matter - the stuff you and I and all visible matter is made of - exists in the universe, and tally up its mass.</p>
<p>The best guess so far is that we are missing roughly half of all the normal matter, with the rest lying in the vast voids between the galaxies — the very regions so readily probed by FRBs.</p>
<p>Are FRBs the weigh stations of the cosmos?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xObKVJrnxZg?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Difficult to find and harder to pinpoint</h2>
<p>There are a few reasons why we still have so many questions about FRBs. First, they are tricky to find. It takes the Parkes telescope around two weeks of constant watching to find a burst. </p>
<p>Worse, even when you’ve found one, many radio telescopes like Parkes can only pinpoint its location in the sky to a region about the size of the full Moon. If you want to work out which galaxy an FRB came from, you have hundreds to choose from within that area. </p>
<p>The ideal FRB detector needs both a large field of view and the ability to pinpoint events to a region one thousandth the area of the Moon. Until recently, no such radio telescope existed.</p>
<h2>A jewel in the desert</h2>
<p>Now it does in ASKAP, a radio telescope being built by the CSIRO in Murchison Shire, 370km northeast of Geraldton in Western Australia. It’s actually a network of 36 antennas, each 12 metres in diameter.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168893/original/file-20170511-32620-1umkqxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168893/original/file-20170511-32620-1umkqxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ASKAP antennas during fly’s-eye observing. All the antennas point in different directions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Steele (Curtin University)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>ASKAP is a very special machine, because each antenna is equipped with an innovative CSIRO-designed receiver called a phased-array feed. While most radio telescopes see just one patch of sky at time, ASKAP’s phased-array feeds see 36 different patches of sky simultaneously. This is great for finding FRBs because the more sky you can see, the better chance you have of finding them.</p>
<p>To find lots of FRBs we need to cast an even wider net. Normally, ASKAP dishes all point in the same direction. This is great if you’re making images or want to find faint FRBs.</p>
<p>Thanks to <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6317/1249">recent evidence from Parkes</a>, we realised there might be some super-bright FRBs too. </p>
<p>So we took a hint from nature. In the same way that the segments of a fly’s eye allow it to see all around it, we pointed all our antennas in lots of different directions. This fly’s-eye observing mode enabled us to see a total patch of sky about the size of 1,000 full Moons.</p>
<p>That’s how we discovered this new FRB within days of starting, and using just eight of ASKAP’s total of 36 antennas.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170257/original/file-20170522-12231-19sr7rj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170257/original/file-20170522-12231-19sr7rj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Radio image of the sky where ASKAP found its first FRB. The blue circles are the 36 patches of the sky that ASKAP antenna number 5 (named <em>Gagurla</em> in the local Wadjarri language) was watching at the time the FRB was detected. The red smudge marks where the FRB came from. The black dots are galaxies, far, far, away. The full Moon is shown to scale, in the bottom corner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Heywood (CSIRO)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>When fully operational</h2>
<p>So far, in fly’s-eye mode we have made no attempt to combine the signals from all the antennas. ASKAP’s real party piece will be to point all the telescopes in the same direction and combine the signals from all the antennas.</p>
<p>This will give us a precise position for every single burst, enabling us to identify the host galaxy of each FRB and measure its exact distance.</p>
<p>Armed with this information, we will be able to activate our network of cosmic weigh stations. At this point we will be able to investigate a fundamental question that has been plaguing astronomers for more than 20 years: where is the missing matter in the universe?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77481/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Bannister works for the CSIRO.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean-Pierre Macquart receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is a member of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics. </span></em></p>It used to take weeks to find any of these mysterious signals from deep in space but when the new telescope started looking it found one within days. Then another.Keith Bannister, Astronomer, CSIROJean-Pierre Macquart, Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/769922017-05-05T06:06:34Z2017-05-05T06:06:34ZWhat happens when scientists stand up for science<p>The 2017 <a href="https://satellites.marchforscience.com/">March for Science</a> was a powerful political statement by scientists. The marchers opposed political interference, budget cuts and lack of support for science at a government level. </p>
<p>More commonly, though, scientists stay in their labs and avoid the public political spotlight. </p>
<p>CSIRO scientist John Church – who initially acted as an individual (not a representative of his research institution) to “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-05-02/csiro-missing-in-action-on-climate-advice/8479568">stand up for science</a>” in 2015 – is cited as a recent example of the career ramifications that can flow from public activity. </p>
<p>Actually, he’s not alone. For years, outspoken scientists have encountered career difficulties and personal repercussions. </p>
<p>But climate science and the advent of digital and social media shape how scientists speak publicly about science now. </p>
<h2>Decades of attacks on scientists</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-edit-science-part-5-so-what-is-science-74550">Science</a>, an effective system for generating knowledge, is inextricably linked with economic, military and political activity. </p>
<p>For decades, <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo3638376.html">scientific research has been shaped</a> by the agendas of the most powerful groups in society, primarily governments and corporations. The period following World War II has been described as the era of “<a href="http://derekdesollaprice.org/little-science-big-science-full-text/">big science</a>” with generous funding for research. </p>
<p>Periodically though, research findings connect with emerging social movements. </p>
<p>In the early 1970s, CSIRO scientist <a href="http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/86is/Springell.html">Peter Springell</a> reported that he was blocked from publishing articles on environmental topics using his CSIRO affiliation, after he criticised CSIRO’s lack of environmental research. </p>
<p>According to Springell, he was targeted with a punitive transfer and <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/120035676/">recommended for dismissal</a>. To my knowledge, there has been <a href="http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/86is/Springell.html">no public response from CSIRO</a> to this claim. </p>
<p>Claims have also been made regarding repercussions after scientists spoke up about hazards from <a href="https://academic.oup.com/spp/article/13/6/312/1612999/Nuclear-suppression">nuclear power</a>, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0306312708089716">genetic modification</a>, <a href="http://www.goingsomewherebook.com">electromagnetic fields</a> or <a href="http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=74">using treated sewage sludge</a> on agricultural land. </p>
<p>In several scientific fields, there is a pattern of <a href="http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/99rsppp.pdf">suppression of dissent</a>. In many of these cases, scientists have challenged either the orthodoxy in the field or policy positions. </p>
<p>Whether these challengers are right or wrong is not the focus of this analysis. Rather, the point is that their claims should be evaluated scientifically and that the scientists should not be subject to unfair treatment.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.bmartin.cc/dissent/documents/WilsonBarnes95.pdf">survey</a> of Australian environmental scientists undertaken in the mid 1990s contained 70 participants. Over half of respondents believed that scientists who spoke out about environmental issues could jeopardise their research funding or career prospects. </p>
<p><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/307/5711/854.summary">Surveys</a> conducted in 2002/2003 in “a sample of researchers drawn from prestigious U.S. academic departments” reported that “nearly half the researchers felt constrained by explicit, formal controls, such as governmental regulations and guidelines codified by universities, professional societies, or journals”. </p>
<h2>And then came climate change</h2>
<p>In the past two decades, the usual pattern of scientific research shaped by social interests has been challenged in several ways. A key factor is climate science. The scientific orthodoxy today – that global warming is occurring and largely due to human influences – is contrary to the interests of the fossil fuel industry. </p>
<p>Because climate change is the world’s most prominent environmental issue, this causes unprecedented tensions in countries such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-climate-politics-in-2017-a-guide-for-the-perplexed-70526">Australia</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/red-state-rural-america-is-acting-on-climate-change-without-calling-it-climate-change-69866">US</a>, where some politicians appear sympathetic to climate scepticism.</p>
<p>Under the US administrations of George W Bush and Donald Trump, this tension has been exacerbated by concerns about <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/promoting-scientific-integrity/abuses-science-case-studies#.WQl7bVKB1Uc">overt political interference</a> in research agendas.</p>
<p>Removal of references to climate change on the White House website is cited as <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-were-marching-for-science-in-australia-73907">one of the triggers</a> for the global March for Science movement. </p>
<h2>Control and trust</h2>
<p>The emergence of open access research published online, plus social media has changed how scientific findings are distributed and read, and who drives dialogues about science. Scientists, governments and other groups can’t control conversations about the implications of research in this environment. </p>
<p>Action groups can more readily access research findings, and use them to support their causes. This occurs in all sorts of fields. </p>
<p>Public trust in authorities is in decline, including those in <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198295685.001.0001/acprof-9780198295686">government</a>, <a href="https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/climate-change/politicization-science-public-sphere-trust-united-states">science</a> and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-trust-crisis-in-healthcare-9780195176360?cc=au&amp;lang=en&amp;">health</a>. </p>
<p>Yet another factor is the increasing role of <a href="https://theconversation.com/35-years-for-manning-and-time-for-better-whistleblowing-laws-17333">whistleblowing</a>. Speaking out in the public interest occurs in all sorts of areas, including schools, police, the military, the public service, churches and businesses. So why not in scientific fields?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/15sls.html">Public interest leaking</a> — or anonymous whistleblowing — has received enormous attention due to WikiLeaks and the spectacular disclosures by Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. It’s an option some scientists may choose to take. </p>
<h2>Group and anonymous activity</h2>
<p>Systems of power have always led to <a href="http://alicedreger.com/GMF">attacks on scientists</a> who are seen as a threat by governments, corporations or (in recent decades) members of identity groups such as transgender activists. Most of these cases involve both power and a clash of worldviews. </p>
<p>There is safety in numbers, and this is why the March for Science is so important. <a href="https://satellites.marchforscience.com/">Reports</a> say that thousands of scientists across more than 600 cities stood up for science on April 22, 2017. </p>
<p>It remains risky to speak out as an individual, so the option of leaking information to the media or to action groups may become increasingly attractive. </p>
<p>However, in Australia <a href="https://theconversation.com/unesco-report-surveillance-and-data-collection-are-putting-journalists-and-sources-at-risk-77038">surveillance and data retention</a> may make it more difficult to maintain anonymity. </p>
<p>Individual scientists may still choose to become advocates to support informed public debate and policymaking. Because of the risk of reprisals, such scientists would be wise to learn media skills, campaigning techniques and how to be more effective when speaking out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76992/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Martin is vice president of Whistleblowers Australia. </span></em></p>It's not a new phenomenon that scientists who challenge the orthodoxy or policy positions suffer career ramifications.Brian Martin, Honorary professorial fellow, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/768662017-05-01T20:04:31Z2017-05-01T20:04:31ZThe solar panel and battery revolution: how will your state measure up?<p>A <a href="http://www.energynetworks.com.au/sites/default/files/entr_final_report_summary_april_2017.pdf">new roadmap</a> for Australia’s electricity networks outlines a national plan to keep the lights on, make sure bills are affordable, and decarbonise our electricity industry by mid-century.</p>
<p>The plan, by CSIRO and <a href="http://www.energynetworks.com.au/">Energy Networks Australia</a>, sets out measures that could save households A$414 a year on average, by generating their own electricity through “distributed” technologies such as solar panels and batteries. It envisages that Australia could save a total of A$101 billion by 2050, while also bringing net greenhouse emissions to zero.</p>
<p>As described in an <a href="https://theconversation.com/australians-can-have-zero-emission-electricity-without-blowing-the-bill-69869">earlier draft report last December</a>, Australia’s electricity networks can be transformed to give millions of customers more choice and control over their energy, while also meeting Australia’s international climate change commitments.</p>
<p>The roadmap calls for a coordinated approach, but how will that play out in practice?</p>
<h2>Regional analysis</h2>
<p>While it is a national plan, each state and territory will play its own distinct role. </p>
<p>Each faces different circumstances in terms of electricity demand growth, renewable resources, state renewable energy policies, and the age and fuel mix of their existing electricity infrastructure. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.energynetworks.com.au/sites/default/files/entr_final_report_april_2017.pdf">full report</a> outlines what each state and territory can expect.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167337/original/file-20170501-29380-8mht56.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167337/original/file-20170501-29380-8mht56.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Regional analysis snapshot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CSIRO/ENA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>New South Wales</strong></p>
<p>The renewable electricity generation share in NSW is expected increase steadily to 28% by 2030. Thereafter, new generation capacity building is expected to accelerate to fill the gap left by more rapid coal capacity retirement.</p>
<p>NSW’s rooftop solar panel capacity will increase by more than 400% by 2030, with more than 6,000 megawatt hours in small-scale battery storage. These changes will be driven largely by falling costs, which will encourage wider customer adoption and the use of larger system sizes.</p>
<p>NSW customers will become a significant player in Australia’s overall energy system, with the capacity of the state’s rooftop solar panels projected to exceed 11,000MW by 2030 - more than the state’s coal-fired capacity today.</p>
<p><strong>Queensland</strong></p>
<p>Similarly to NSW, were the lack of coal plant retirement to be the main driver, Queensland’s renewable electricity share would lag other states at only 12% by 2030, with more rapid transformation occurring in the period between 2030 and 2050. However, state government renewable energy schemes could modify this outcome.</p>
<p>Queensland will see a huge increase in rooftop solar panels, of more than 500% by 2030. By then, it is also forecast to have more than 10,000MWh of small-scale battery storage capacity – the equivalent of 760,000 residential battery storage systems. That will rise to the equivalent of more than 2 million household battery systems by 2050.</p>
<p>High levels of rooftop solar and other distributed generation will create challenges for Queensland’s electricity network. There is the potential for “reverse flow” (where local generation exceeds consumption) in many parts of the Queensland power system within 15 years.</p>
<p><strong>Victoria</strong></p>
<p>Victoria is assumed to meet its target of 40% renewable share of generation by 2025 and maintain that share for next 15 years before investment accelerates again in the 2040s.</p>
<p>Victoria is also set for a 500% increase in rooftop solar panels by 2030, and more than 6,000MWh in small-scale battery storage. These batteries would represent the equivalent of 440,000 residential battery storage systems installed by 2030, and more than 1 million by 2050.</p>
<p><strong>South Australia</strong></p>
<p>South Australia has the second highest share of renewables of all states at around 40% and is expected to steadily improve that position until other states accelerate their own building programs in the 2030s.</p>
<p>South Australia’s rooftop solar panels will increase by more than 300% by 2030, with 4,000MWh of small-scale battery storage.</p>
<p>While South Australia already leads the nation in the installation of new large-scale renewable generation and is set to become a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-30/new-solar-project-announced-for-sa-riverland/8400952">leading installer of large-scale battery capacity</a>, small-scale renewables and batteries will also play an important part in its future energy mix, as in other states.</p>
<p><strong>Western Australia</strong></p>
<p>WA’s rooftop solar power capacity will triple by 2030, combined with a forecast 2,000MWh of small-scale battery storage.</p>
<p>More than 40% of the states’s electricity is projected to come from renewable sources by 2030, as is the case in South Australia today.</p>
<p><strong>Tasmania</strong></p>
<p>Tasmania is the leading renewable generation state and its hydro generation and storage capacity could support grid stability in the broader National Energy Market into the future.</p>
<p>Residential battery storage would play a small but significant role in supporting the energy transformation in Tasmania. More than 1,000MWh in onsite battery capacity could be installed in Tasmania by 2030, and more than 2,000MWh by 2050.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Graham has received funding throughout his career from electricity generators, electricity networks, federal and state government departments, non-government non-profit organisations and energy consulting and engineering companies.</span></em></p>A new report predicts a boom in household solar and batteries as Australia's electricity networks move to a more sustainable footing, with some states poised for a 500% boost in rooftop solar.Paul Graham, Chief economist, CSIRO energy, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/727352017-02-12T19:14:46Z2017-02-12T19:14:46ZWhy it's time for Australia to launch its own space agency<p>Any nation that hopes to have a space program needs to be able to keep an eye on its orbiting assets at all times. This means that Australia has become a key link in the global chain of ground-based tracking stations.</p>
<p>The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/">NASA</a>) has a deep space tracking facility at <a href="http://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/">Tidbinbilla</a> in the ACT, managed by the CSIRO, and the European Space Agency (<a href="http://www.esa.int/ESA">ESA</a>) has one in <a href="http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/Estrack/New_Norcia_-_DSA_1">New Norcia</a>, Western Australia.</p>
<p>The New Norcia station plays a further role as it picks up and tracks the ESA launches from French Guiana as they curve across the Indian Ocean on their way to Earth orbit or beyond. </p>
<p>This means that Australia plays a critical role in many other countries’ space programs. Right now, about 40 space missions – including deep space planetary explorers, Mars rovers, solar observatories and astronomical space observatories – are routinely downlinking their data through radio dishes on Australian soil. </p>
<p>This uniquely acquired data is then piped out of the country to the eagerly waiting US and European scientific communities, bypassing our own.</p>
<p>If Australia is to capitalise on its strengths in space tracking as well as space science, and is to get on board with the burgeoning commercial space industry, it’s time that we considered forming a space agency of our own.</p>
<p>A space agency serves several roles. First and foremost is the creation of coherence across a complex sector. In particular, the agency would need to coordinate and drive the development of homegrown space technologies. </p>
<p>It can develop collaborative space missions with partner agencies, operate and manage diverse space platforms, engage in the establishment of space protocols, and participate in the exploration of the Solar System and the study of the Universe. It can also oversee the management of the Australian landmass, oceans and atmosphere, and help provide sovereign security. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156293/original/image-20170210-8646-1wskauz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156293/original/image-20170210-8646-1wskauz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, located at Tidbinbilla, just outside Canberra, is one of three Deep Space Network stations around the world providing continuous, two-way radio contact with spacecraft exploring our solar system and beyond.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/image/11042/aerial-view-of-the-canberra-deep-space-communication-complex/">CSIRO/Robert Kerton</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Beyond the horizon</h2>
<p>Australia’s vital role was established on the back of the Apollo space program, as celebrated in the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0205873/">The Dish</a>. This is a direct consequence of Earth’s rotation and the need for continuous communications, particularly during critical phases such as launches, landings and flybys. </p>
<p>These downlink facilities are now being actively “geared up” for the <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/journey-to-mars-supported-by-new-canberran-antenna-20161102-gsg1nv.html">global push to Mars</a>, with the recent addition of two new dishes at Tidbinbilla and the likely addition of a new dish at New Norcia. </p>
<p>Even with these planned expansions, the demand for further capacity is clear. NASA’s next flagship mission in planning is the <a href="https://wfirst.nasa.gov/">Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope</a>, a deep space near-infrared imager 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope. This requires an additional dish in Australia, or the redeployment of an existing Australian facility.</p>
<p>This ongoing expansion is driven by a need to manage the rapidly growing fleet of active spacecraft, as well as higher download rates coming from more complex in-flight instruments. </p>
<p>The space industry, like space itself, is expanding. Next-generation astronomy facilities are moving into space, there are plans to <a href="https://theconversation.com/space-mining-is-closer-than-you-think-and-the-prospects-are-great-45707">mine asteroids</a>, and planetary probes are becoming more ambitious. There are also fledgling plans to send a crewed mission to Mars. </p>
<p>Indeed, the commercial sector may well reach the mineral-rich asteroids first, and will need powerful radio dishes at Australian longitudes to navigate those landings, launches and eventual returns.</p>
<p>Australia does have its own leading radio observatories, highly skilled radio engineers and radio astronomers, but has so far managed to avoid any deep collaborative engagement with the space sector. </p>
<p>No one is suggesting that the data we receive on behalf of NASA or the ESA should be held to ransom, but it is worth asking whether we should be doing more to capitalise on our lucky longitude, and gradually transfer the downlink burden from NASA and ESA to Australia. </p>
<p>In return, Australia could obtain direct collaborative involvement in existing and future missions, as well as assistance in kick-starting our own fledgling space capabilities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156295/original/image-20170210-8651-1uruo06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156295/original/image-20170210-8651-1uruo06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ESA’s deep-space tracking dish at New Norcia, in Western Australia, about 120 km from Perth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ESA/D. O'Donnell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Within NASA and ESA there does appear to be an appetite for deeper engagement. Operating these facilities from afar is not ideal. Indeed, the operations contracts are managed through third party organisations, with <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Astronomy/Spacecraft-tracking-and-space-science/NASA-CSIRO-relationship">CSIRO</a> for NASA and the UK-based <a href="http://www.inmarsat.com/">Inmarsat</a> for ESA. However, these organisations act mainly in a service and support capacity and while CSIRO is involved in the development and construction of the radio technologies, the engagement in terms of space collaboration and as a science beneficiary is lacking.</p>
<p>Economically, the arguments have been laid out before. It is simply a fact that space is a rapidly growing sector presenting superb opportunities for financial and economic prosperity, as well as the expansion of human knowledge and endeavour. </p>
<p>Joining this industry as a meaningful player at this late stage is not going to be easy, but is undoubtedly critical for our economic and scientific future and our security. </p>
<p>Building on our unique longitude legacy could provide the bedrock on which we can establish ourselves at the heart of NASA and ESA endeavours. Even better, this opportunity opens the door to space, through government investment in Australian-based construction projects and Australian-based operation centres.</p>
<p>We simply need an Australian Space Agency to manage the process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Driver receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is affiliated with the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and most of his research activities involve analysing data from NASA and ESA space missions.</span></em></p>An Australian Space Agency could capitalise on our history working with NASA and the ESA and boost our entry into the expanding commercial space industry.Simon Driver, Professor of Astrophysics, University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/717002017-01-23T19:16:35Z2017-01-23T19:16:35ZNew science minister needs to maintain momentum and push the innovation agenda<p>The science sector will watch with interest today as Arthur Sinodinos is sworn in as Australia’s new <a href="http://minister.industry.gov.au/">Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science</a>.</p>
<p>Sinodinos will be the fourth science minister in three years. This is the kind of instability that would typically raise a red flag, especially for a sector like science where training, work programs, infrastructure requirements and outcomes all have timeframes much longer than election cycles, let alone cabinet reshuffles.</p>
<p>There is plenty to be positive about, though. In December 2015, then science minister Christopher Pyne laid significant foundations for science policy in Australia with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/expert-panel-what-the-national-innovation-statement-means-for-science-51902">National Innovation and Science Agenda</a> (NISA). This was a very important policy statement coordinating many parts of government. </p>
<p>It also included a very welcome ten-year commitment to operational funding of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme (<a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/ncris-15242">NCRIS</a>) as well as a suite of new measures spanning international science engagement, translation and commercialisation of research, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/women-in-science-217">gender equality in STEM</a>.</p>
<p>Greg Hunt took the science minister baton after the 2016 election. He started strongly with a powerful speech to the science sector outlining his plans to establish a ten-year science and innovation strategy and to increase public and private spending on research and development (R&amp;D) as a percentage of GDP. </p>
<p>Hunt pledged to support the second and the third waves of the NISA and to increasing the engagement between the science and technology sectors, government and industry.</p>
<p>Hunt together with Bill Ferris AC, the new <a href="http://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/pyne/media-releases/new-chair-innovation-australia-drive-change">Chair of the Office of Innovation and Science Australia</a> conducted a performance audit of Australia’s science and innovation system to inform the development of the 2030 plan for innovation, science and research. </p>
<p>He also laid out his vision for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/csiro-2705">CSIRO</a> as Australia’s premier science and innovation agency with a new statement of expectations to the board. He asked Australia’s chief scientist <a href="https://theconversation.com/chief-scientists-address-to-the-national-press-club-the-voyage-of-science-and-innovation-55645">Alan Finkel</a> to work with the sector to develop a roadmap for Australia’s national research infrastructure.</p>
<p>Now Sinodinos takes over the reins and his task until the next election will be to advance an agenda that is designed to fuel Australia’s future growth.</p>
<h2>Challenges and opportunities ahead</h2>
<p>Sinodinos has big shoes to fill, but early indications are positive. His <a href="http://www.arthursinodinos.com.au/news/media/2017-january-18-statement-by-senator-the-hon-arthur-sinodinos-ao/">first statement</a> following the announcement of his appointment noted his “keen appreciation of the importance of innovation and science policies, including the role of national institutions such as CSIRO, in delivering economic growth and development”.</p>
<p>The draft <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/2016-national-research-infrastructure-roadmap">National Research Infrastructure Roadmap</a>, due for finalisation early this year, recognises the importance of research in delivering economic growth and development, as well as advances in basic science. </p>
<p>For example CSIRO’s new <a href="http://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Facilities/Marine-National-Facility/RV-Investigator">research vessel, Investigator</a>, is an extraordinary tool for mineral exploration. It will provide crucial information to support our fisheries, along the way discovering entirely new species and previously unmapped volcanoes and faults on the sea floor around our continent.</p>
<p>But the infrastructure roadmap also calls for the development of a roadmap investment plan, a capital fund that will need to be adequate to support new and upgraded research infrastructure to meet Australia’s needs.</p>
<p>This may provide Sinodinos with his first real challenge, not least because it is partly out of his control. The <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/education-investment-fund">Education Investment Fund</a>, which was established by Labor in 2008-09 to support research programs and infrastructure of this kind, has been dormant for nearly two years. It has already been slated for “repurposing” to fill a <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/health/37bn-hole-in-ndis-funding-after-transfer-of-education-money-fails/news-story/c1245559a618008c53242bc01d520d4c">A$3.7 billion hole</a> in funding for the <a href="https://www.ndis.gov.au/">National Disability Insurance Scheme</a>.</p>
<p>If legislation enabling this transfer passes the Senate, then the government will need to find an alternate way to support research infrastructure. If not, the credibility of the NISA, and its central role in the prime minister’s economic agenda, will be called into very serious question.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-national-collaborative-research-infrastructure-strategy-ncris-38837">27 projects funded by NCRIS</a> are excellent examples of the tools that provide a strong basis on which Australia’s future can be built. This infrastructure underpins advances in fields as diverse as genetics, nanotechnology, astronomy and agriculture, all of which will drive Australia’s future.</p>
<p>If Sinodinos can defend and champion the nation-building role of research infrastructure within cabinet and secure the necessary financial commitment, then he will win the support and respect of many of those watching today.</p>
<p>What the sector needs now is certainty that the programs initiated by Christopher Pyne and Greg Hunt, and the momentum they have been building, will continue under Sinodinos. This is both for scientists working on basic research problems, where the pathways to commercial or social outcomes are still unclear, and for innovators taking on the risk of taking technology to market.</p>
<p>It has been good to see CSIRO re-affirmed as Australia’s flagship science and innovation agency, with Hunt’s <a href="http://www.csiro.au/en/About/Leadership-governance/Minister-and-Board/Statement-of-Expectations">Statement of Expectations</a> for CSIRO. It was a landmark in the sector and provided reassurance that the Turnbull government understands CSIRO’s contribution to Australia’s future growth. This is something that the new minister also acknowledged in his first statement.</p>
<p>CSIRO’s influence extends beyond Australia. Science is a global pursuit, and Sinodinos needs to build on the international outlook that Hunt brought to the portfolio. The previous minister’s efforts to build international links, including stronger ties to South East Asia and the United States, will reap rewards for Australia.</p>
<p>Sinodinos will inherit a portfolio with a firm direction and a strong drive. Australia’s science and innovation sector is well positioned. It needs a firm hand at the helm and strong leadership to keep things on track. </p>
<p>If the new minister can reinforce the message that innovation, science and technology are the real drivers of change we will see Australia not only growing, but making a real global impact.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71700/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Les Field is the Secretary of Science Policy, Australian Academy of Science. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at UNSW.</span></em></p>The new minister for science has some challenges ahead, but there is an opportunity to build on the foundations laid by his predcessors.Les Field, Secretary for Science Policy at the Australian Academy of Science, and Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, UNSWLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/712172017-01-16T00:41:45Z2017-01-16T00:41:45ZThe Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder finally hits the big-data highway<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152475/original/image-20170111-29602-tyid6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder uses several telescopes to survey the sky.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CSIRO</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You know how long it takes to pack the car to go on holidays. But there’s a moment when you’re all in, everyone has their seatbelt on, you pull out of the drive and you’re off.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://www.atnf.csiro.au/projects/askap/index.html">ASKAP</a> (Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder) telescope has just pulled out of the drive, so to speak, at its base in Western Australia at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), about 315km northeast of Geraldton.</p>
<p>ASKAP is made of 36 identical 12-metre wide dish antennas that all work together, 12 of which are currently in operation. Thirty ASKAP antennas have now been fitted with specialised <a href="http://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Astronomy/ASKAP-and-the-Square-Kilometre-Array/PAFs">phased array feeds</a>, the rest will be installed later in 2017.</p>
<p>Until now, we’d been taking data mainly to test how ASKAP performs. Having shown the telescope’s technical excellence it’s now off on its big trip, starting to make observations for the big science projects it’ll be doing for the next five years.</p>
<p>And it’s taking lots of data. Its antennas are now churning out 5.2 terabytes of data <em>per second</em> (about 15 per cent of the internet’s current data rate).</p>
<p>Once out of the telescope, the data is going through a new, almost automatic data-processing system we’ve developed.</p>
<p>It’s like a bread-making machine: put in the data, make some choices, press the button and leave it overnight. In the morning you have a nice batch of freshly made images from the telescope.</p>
<h2>Go the WALLABIES</h2>
<p>The first project we’ve been taking data for is one of ASKAP’s largest surveys, <a href="http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/WALLABY/">WALLABY</a> (Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind surveY).</p>
<p>On board the survey are a happy band of 100-plus scientists – affectionately known as the WALLABIES – from many countries, led by one of our astronomers, <a href="http://people.csiro.au/K/B/Baerbel-Koribalski">Bärbel Koribalski</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lister-staveley-smith-227485">Lister Staveley-Smith</a> of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (<a href="http://www.icrar.org/">ICRAR</a>), University of Western Australia.</p>
<p>They’re aiming to detect and measure neutral hydrogen gas in galaxies over three-quarters of the sky. To see the farthest of these galaxies they’ll be looking three billion years back into the universe’s past, with a <a href="http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/C/cosmological+redshift">redshift</a> of 0.26.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152474/original/image-20170111-29567-1jvl03y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152474/original/image-20170111-29567-1jvl03y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Neutral hydrogen gas in one of the galaxies, IC 5201 in the southern constellation of Grus (The Crane), imaged in early observations for the WALLABY project.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Whiting, Karen Lee-Waddell and Bärbel Koribalski (all CSIRO); WALLABY team</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Neutral hydrogen – just lonely individual hydrogen atoms floating around – is the basic form of matter in the universe. Galaxies are made up of stars but also dark matter, dust and gas – mostly hydrogen. Some of the hydrogen turns into stars.</p>
<p>Although the universe has been busy making stars for most of its 13.7-billion-year life, there’s still a fair bit of neutral hydrogen around. In the nearby (low-redshift) universe, most of it hangs out in galaxies. So mapping the neutral hydrogen is a useful way to map the galaxies, which isn’t always easy to do with just starlight.</p>
<p>But as well as mapping where the galaxies are, we want to know how they live their lives, get on with their neighbours, grow and change over time. </p>
<p>When galaxies live together in big groups and clusters they steal gas from each other, a processes called accretion and stripping. Seeing how the hydrogen gas is disturbed or missing tells us what the galaxies have been up to.</p>
<p>We can also use the hydrogen signal to work out a lot of a galaxy’s individual characteristics, such as its distance, how much gas it contains, its total mass, and how much dark matter it contains.</p>
<p>This information is often used in combination with characteristics we learn from studying the light of the galaxy’s stars.</p>
<h2>Oh what big eyes you have ASKAP</h2>
<p>ASKAP sees large pieces of sky with a field of view of 30 square degrees. The WALLABY team will observe 1,200 of these fields. Each field contains about 500 galaxies detectable in neutral hydrogen, giving a total of 600,000 galaxies.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152473/original/image-20170111-29596-1optx68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the first fields targeted by WALLABY, the NGC 7232 galaxy group.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Heywood (CSIRO); WALLABY team</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This image (above) of the NGC 7232 galaxy group was made with just two nights’ worth of data.</p>
<p>ASKAP has now made 150 hours of observations of this field, which has been found to contain 2,300 radio sources (the white dots), almost all of them galaxies.</p>
<p>It has also observed a second field, one containing the Fornax cluster of galaxies, and started on two more fields over the Christmas and New Year period.</p>
<p>Even more will be dug up by targeted searches. Simply detecting all the WALLABY galaxies will take more than two years, and interpreting the data even longer. ASKAP’s data will live in a huge archive that astronomers will sift through over many years with the help of supercomputers at the Pawsey Centre in Perth, Western Australia. </p>
<p>ASKAP has nine other big survey projects planned, so this is just the beginning of the journey. It’s really a very exciting time for ASKAP and the more than 350 international scientists who’ll be working with it.</p>
<p>Who knows where this Big Trip will take them, and what they’ll find along the way?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71217/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>ASKAP is part of the Australia Telescope National Facility which is managed by CSIRO. Operation of ASKAP is funded by the Australian Government with support from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. ASKAP uses the resources of the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. Establishment of ASKAP, the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory and the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre are initiatives of the Australian Government, with support from the government of Western Australia and the Science and Industry Endowment Fund. We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamatji people as the traditional owners of the Observatory site.</span></em></p>After months of running in test-mode, the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope is now gathering data at an incredible rate to give us a new look at how our universe works.Douglas Bock, Director of Astronomy and Space Science, CSIROAntony Schinckel, ASKAP Director, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/580622017-01-08T19:21:37Z2017-01-08T19:21:37ZFood for thought: the rise of Australia's mighty Brahman<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150639/original/image-20161219-26097-1djdz8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brahman cattle in northern Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CSIRO</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The cattle in northern Australia are different to the rest of the national herd and the most striking thing is they have humps. But these humped Brahman cattle are here for a reason: because they adapted to surviving where others cannot in harsh tropical environments.</p>
<p>Brahmans were first introduced to Queensland in 1933. Today the national beef herd is around <a href="http://www.mla.com.au/prices-markets/Trends-analysis/cattle-projections/">26 million cattle</a> and Brahman genetics can be found in <a href="http://www.brahman.com.au/wbc_welcome.html">around 50% of the national herd</a>. More than 70% of the bulls working north of the Tropic of Capricorn are Brahman.</p>
<p>Such has been their impact that, before you can leave Ausralia’s beef capital of Rockhampton, you are greeted with a giant statue of a Brahman bull, a tribute to the immense economic benefits it has delivered. In 2001 it was estimated that Brahman genetics had contributed an extra A$8.1 billion to the Queensland economy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150640/original/image-20161219-26116-1jp1hxk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150640/original/image-20161219-26116-1jp1hxk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Brahman cattle statue in Rockhampton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Thomson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But its impact has been far greater than just dollars and cents. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that the great experiment of introducing these bloodlines into Australia laid down the ideal model of research and industry collaboration that all fields of science can still learn from today.</p>
<p>Like all great advances in human endeavour, it began with an insight, followed by a vision and then years of unrecognised and thankless toil. </p>
<h2>Inspiration from Texas</h2>
<p>In the 1920 the Australian veterinary scientist <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gilruth-john-anderson-6393">John Anderson Gilruth</a> toured the United States and viewed the cattle at the Pierce Estate in Texas. According to Angus Packham’s book of <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/22225335?selectedversion=NBD24379409">Cattle Breeding Research at Rockhampton</a>, Gilruth said that “a vigorously controlled cattle breeding experiment in north Queensland would be wise”.</p>
<p>Gilruth later became the ﬁrst chief of the new division of animal health at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR was the precursor to today’s CSIRO). There, he put forward a proposal to acquire <a href="http://www.thecattlesite.com/breeds/beef/76/zebu/">Zebu cattle</a> (Brahmans are a sub-breed of the Zebu species of cattle).</p>
<p>Wise indeed, but it took until 1933 for the first Zebus to be imported by CSIR on behalf of a handful of cooperating progressive pastoralists, even though most cattlemen did not see value in these humped “feral” cattle of inferior genetics.</p>
<p>The CSIR’s animal geneticist <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kelley-ralph-bodkin-10671">Ralph Bodkin Kelley</a> said at the time:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A cooperator refused to use a CSIR-installed cattle weigh-bridge and another stated that nobody was going to tell him how to breed cattle that were his.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even then it wasn’t until 1941 that Kelly was able to record that “the most worthwhile experiment with respect to Zebu crossbreeding in Australia” had begun. It was another decade before the property Belmont, north of Rockhampton, was purchased as a dedicated research property for cattle research.</p>
<p>Every scientist with a grand vision would appreciate these long thankless years. In fact, the <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/22225335?selectedversion=NBD24379409">CSIR Executive Board questioned:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] whether anybody is cognisant of the very large number of major and minor diﬃculties and problems, of husbandry and science, which will have to be overcome or solved on the ground before Belmont can become the centre of a beef cattle research programme of which CSIR can be proud.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thankfully, things reached a tipping point, and this is where things get really interesting for designing future research collaborations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129798/original/image-20160708-30680-1vrgk3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129798/original/image-20160708-30680-1vrgk3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brahman cattle dominate the northern Australian herd.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CSIRO</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Queensland herd</h2>
<p>In 1965 less than 15% of the Queensland cattle herd contained Brahman genetics. By 1981 it was 60%.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129796/original/image-20160708-30685-s8cgda.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129796/original/image-20160708-30685-s8cgda.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That rise coincided directly with a rise in industry visitors to CSIRO’s research facilities at Belmont, which coincidentally or not, tracks a similar rise in the number of scientific papers published by the researchers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129797/original/image-20160708-30670-1qus1ti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129797/original/image-20160708-30670-1qus1ti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Strong links with industry reﬂected by oﬃcial visitor numbers appears to have been vital in maintaining research momentum, helping to frame industry-relevant research questions and driving adoption of innovation by Queensland cattlemen.</p>
<p>Alas, amid government funding cuts and rationalisation of research activities, the CSIRO left Rockhampton in 2009. It consolidated its northern livestock program to Townsville, leaving the beef capital without a research presence.</p>
<p>The once crowded Rendel Research Laboratories were emptied, Belmont’s pastures were used by private herds, and producers started looking elsewhere for inspiration. </p>
<h2>A new approach</h2>
<p>Despite the successes of the Brahman breed, the challenge facing the north Australian industry remains the same: identifying superior genetics that can thrive in harsh and remote environmental conditions with limited human intervention.</p>
<p>Case in point being the abysmally low fertility rates in some northern Australian herds, where <a href="http://www.mla.com.au/research-and-development/search-rd-reports/final-report-details/productivity-on-farm/northern-australian-beef-fertility-project-cashcow/370">47% calving rates</a> are normal, compared with the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/4630.0main+features72011-12">national average of 76%</a>. </p>
<p>Meat &amp; Livestock Australia (MLA) <a href="http://www.mla.com.au/research-and-development/search-rd-reports/final-report-details/Productivity-On-Farm/The-Northern-beef-report-2013-Northern-beef-situation-analysis/234">research</a> also shows that the 25% of producers in the northern region (i.e. those operating profitably) are acutely focused on their genetics, their pastures and their labour efficiency. They achieve higher reproductive rates, lower mortality rates and heavier sale weights than the rest of the producers. </p>
<p>So the focus now is on engaging producers in the development of new automated monitoring systems to identify new genetics that will take the industry to the next level of productivity.</p>
<p>Systems have been developed that are capable of gathering data on individual animals and Belmont (now owned by farmer association AgForce) is again the touch point for industry. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150645/original/image-20161219-16735-1jhchph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150645/original/image-20161219-16735-1jhchph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A stockman musters cattle on CSIRO’S Belmont research station, 32km north of Rockhampton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/image/11010/a-stockman-musters-cattle-on-csiro-s-belmont-research-station-in-central-queensland/">CSIRO</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This allows our researchers to track in real time which cattle are reaching optimal markets weights the fastest, and which cows are most fertile, as well as the pasture and water availability.</p>
<p>If this sort of technology is rolled out across the industry, the data gathered will dramatically enhance analysis of industry-wide genetic linkages. Producers will be able to more accurately select from a larger number of bulls and cows which have detailed fertility records, and whose progeny will grow faster than their ancestors while consuming less pasture.</p>
<p>For the producer this means more beef produced per hectare, bolstering their bottom line and the nation’s export returns. For the consumer it means industry can select genetics that are known to produce tender beef. And for the environment it will reduce the amount of grazing pressure on ground cover and waterways.</p>
<p>But this will all remain just a scientist’s crusade if producers can’t see the value in adopting new innovation. The key to that riddle is once again opening the doors to Rockhampton’s beef research facilities and recreating that strong link between researchers and producers that proved so successful in the past.</p>
<p>The challenge for governments and the research community is to understand the value of investing for the long-term, riding out the dark and lonely days and the importance of engaging with end-users along the way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dave Swain receives funding from Meat and Livestock Australia and works for CQUniversity, he is a member of the North Australian Beef Research Council. </span></em></p>The humped Brahman cattle are now a regular sight across northern Australia, but it was a challenge to get them accepted by producers.Dave Swain, Professor of Agriculture, CQUniversity AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/701382016-12-21T19:02:22Z2016-12-21T19:02:22ZFestive season survival tips for healthy eating<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150875/original/image-20161220-26759-1p2gjw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indulge in delicious seasonal vegetables and fruit to celebrate summer with friends and family. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/536108785?src=96ASGNvAkctXqW5eneC20g-1-15&amp;id=536108785&amp;size=huge_jpg">from www.shutterstock.com </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most Australians have now finished school or on a break from work, ready for a season of yummy foods, drinks and overindulgence through parties, Christmas and the New Year.</p>
<p>While treats and special occasion foods can add variety and enjoyment to our diets, unfortunately many of us are <a href="https://www.totalwellbeingdiet.com/media/524038/16-00679_CSIRO-Healthy-Diet-Score-2016_WEB_singlepages.pdf">already eating poorly</a> as a regular practice. Each week, Australian adults eat 17 or more serves of alcoholic beverages, chocolate, sugar-sweetened drinks, cakes and biscuits, processed meats and savoury snacks such as crisps.</p>
<p>Of the 35 serves of vegetables adults are recommended to eat per week, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4364.0.55.007%7E2011-12%7EMain%20Features%7EKey%20Findings%7E1">at best</a> Australians are having only <a href="https://www.totalwellbeingdiet.com/media/524038/16-00679_CSIRO-Healthy-Diet-Score-2016_WEB_singlepages.pdf">25 (men) and 29 (women)</a>. One serve is half a cup of vegetables or one cup of salad. </p>
<h2>How can I eat better at Christmas?</h2>
<p>Regardless of how healthily you normally eat, it’s useful to have a plan of attack in periods renowned for dietary excess. Based on what we know about typical Australian eating habits, here are ten festive season survival tips for better health. </p>
<h3>1. Plan your drinks</h3>
<p>Alcohol <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13679-014-0129-4">contains</a> a lot of kilojoules (1 calorie = 4.2 kilojoules), so try setting yourself an alcohol limit before arriving at a party or social function. A good strategy is to alternate alcohol with water, soda water or diet soft drinks. To keep your sugar intake down, switch sugar sweetened drinks for diet options, or better still, water.</p>
<h3>2. Eat before the party</h3>
<p>It can be a mistake to arrive hungry to a function offering cocktail food. The temptation to shove lots of yummy treats in your mouth is hard to resist! </p>
<p>The ideal option is to eat a healthy meal beforehand. Aim for plenty of salad or vegetables, some <a href="https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/five-food-groups/lean-meat-and-poultry-fish-eggs-tofu-nuts-and-seeds-and">lean protein</a> (meat, chicken or fish) and a small side of wholegrain carbohydrates (for example, half a cup of cooked brown rice). Dietary proteins leave us feeling <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00394-013-0552-4">fuller for longer</a>. </p>
<p>Not all canapés are created the same. If you <em>are</em> eating at the party, look for lean protein-based choices, such as meat balls, prawns, lean meat skewers, sushi, cold rolls or frittata. Avoid fried and pastry-based morsels.</p>
<h3>3. Have a platter strategy</h3>
<p>It’s difficult to keep track of how much you’ve eaten when enjoying finger food. If grazing from a platter, go for the vegetable sticks in preference to crackers, and choose hummus and vegetable based dips. </p>
<p>If cheese is your thing, focus on quality rather than quantity, and consciously cut thin slices. Cheese is <a href="https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/five-food-groups/milk-yoghurt-cheese-andor-their-alternatives-mostly-reduced-fat">high</a> in kilojoules. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150820/original/image-20161219-24307-1nvwtay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vegetables contain essential vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, loads of fibre and hardly any kilojoules.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/namoscato/16449067326/in/photolist-r4xLD5-j2ZnmM-gFYwn2-fjspLT-4EtQeh-7MNAuz-6TAMy-5cWBrA-9wENyD-7MNmqi-7MMgSn-8hh38W-9FuvuP-7MQAsS-6TwsHb-95fbbK-efyceX-4FgGAX-eSX9ev-efycDi-ddFap1-djxdfW-gbZekE-7MP1oe-qHwQQ-8hh3qY-9pufFn-7t4V1S-cwHFfQ-8hh3k3-8hdMQB-7MSkUw-7kREnb-4T5zGx-8hh49h-9XAYgP-pzyw8y-zhDkiA-M52EY1-GZEVTs-9e6u5d-pP7rb-7MP1Mk-7MSxyw-ddF9fn-5WQMk4-5FfXKu-85pN5g-5FfXHj-zGHFzy">namoscato/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h3>4. Two courses is plenty</h3>
<p>There’s no need to miss out on delicious meals when eating at a restaurant. </p>
<p>A simple way to prevent kilojoule overload is to limit yourself to one to two courses, for example entrée and a main, mains and a side salad, or main and dessert.</p>
<h3>5. Focus on lean protein plus vegetables</h3>
<p>Instead of carbohydrate-heavy pasta, pizza and rice-based dishes, select main meals that include <a href="https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/five-food-groups/lean-meat-and-poultry-fish-eggs-tofu-nuts-and-seeds-and">lean protein foods</a>, and salads or vegetables. </p>
<p>Burgers are often a good source of protein, and you could just eat one half of the bun if it’s a large serving size. </p>
<p>To avoid <a href="https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/healthy-eating/food-and-nutrition/fats-and-cholesterol/saturated-and-trans-fat">unhealthy fats</a> (and too many kilojoules), it’s best to steer away from deep fried offerings such as chips, wedges, battered or crumbed fish or calamari, and schnitzels. Many curries can contain hidden fats and kilojoules too. </p>
<h3>6. Pick raw and steamed side dishes</h3>
<p>Choose steamed vegetables or salads if you order side dishes and not fried chips, wedges or mashed potatoes. <a href="https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/five-food-groups/vegetables-and-legumes-beans">Vegetables</a> contain essential vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, loads of fibre to fill you up and hardly any kilojoules. </p>
<p>Regular vegetable intake is associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. So load half your plate with a rainbow of vegetables and/or salads and get munching. </p>
<h3>7. Know your weakness!</h3>
<p>Most of us have a soft spot for something sweet or salty. Admitting this is important! Whatever your weakness, it might be best to not eat any at all, as stopping after you have had some may be harder than resisting altogether. </p>
<h3>8. Avoid the sausage</h3>
<p>Sausages and other processed meats contain <a href="https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/fat-salt-sugars-and-alcohol/fat">saturated fats</a>, salt and preservatives, and high intake is linked with <a href="http://www.cancer.org.au/news/blog/risks/not-everything-gives-you-cancer-but-eating-too-much-processed-meat-certainly-can.html">elevated risk</a> of bowel cancers. At BBQs, switch sausages for hamburgers made using lean mince, or lean meat skewers. </p>
<h3>9. Dessert is OK, but be smart</h3>
<p>If you fancy dessert, offer to share with someone, or look for fruit-based options. <a href="https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/fat-salt-sugars-and-alcohol/sugars">Added sugars</a> in foods are a source of “empty kilojoules”; they give our bodies energy but very little in the way of nutrients for health. Frequent sugar consumption can also lead to <a href="http://www.nature.com/ebd/journal/v15/n4/full/6401055a.html">tooth decay</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150823/original/image-20161219-24303-rt7c1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At BBQs, lean meat cuts and skewers are a healthier choice than sausages,</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/86624586@N00/4685578363/in/photolist-893PcR-2SB7P-nuuVPP-Hj4yu-6Sa5WX-a249z3-ccVt1w-JTS2y-8qzJqa-p7oT6o-erSc9S-NkUk2-MQjWV-fMgFk-2hTsao-eiLKph-7XR3NL-9U8Wxm-6RELxj-8DJTwU-53moZr-5PBf4B-5ohw8V-8znfBs-amWpBP-Nm4Eh-brvpSv-brvorR-akhyoW-7F5nJT-iWA92Z-7yJZKn-bAEan6-6bg8uK-8EJ5Z2-4T5eTd-9KnBCD-4RSzsN-8EMgcb-6KwPg6-h7oXK-a24Bpf-awXMuL-brvpDr-28Wqvm-9BEZgv-cdqPSA-cnFTPG-cXJRch-8knVeq">86624586@N00/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h3>10. Snacks - be alert, not alarmed</h3>
<p>Be conscious of the number and type of snacks you consume between meals, as it’s easy to lose track. </p>
<p>Instead, make the most of delicious and seasonal summer stone fruits, cherries and berries. Leave rum balls, mince pies, ginger breads and puddings as an indulgence for Christmas day. </p>
<h2>Keep it simple</h2>
<p>If you can’t face a 10-step approach, <a href="https://www.totalwellbeingdiet.com/media/524038/16-00679_CSIRO-Healthy-Diet-Score-2016_WEB_singlepages.pdf">keep it simple</a> this summer. Think about the three junk foods or drinks you are most partial to, and halve the amount you consume. And while you’re at it, double your vegetable and salad habit. </p>
<p>Serious tactics are often needed to manage prickly relatives and awkward gifting moments during the Christmas period. Taking the same approach and applying it to your eating habits could have you enter the new year feeling great.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Get a snapshot of your own dietary habits by completing the free CSIRO Diet Score <a href="https://my.totalwellbeingdiet.com/healthy-diet-score">survey</a> – it takes about 10-15 minutes, and you will be given your three biggest areas to improve on once completed.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70138/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Bowen receives funding from SP Health, Probiotec, Almond Board of California, South Australian Department of Health, is co-author of the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet and authored the CSIRO Wellbeing Plan for Kids. </span></em></p>Healthy eating can still be delicious! Limit dietary blowout by going into the Christmas and holiday period with a plan.Jane Bowen, Research Scientist and Research Dietician, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/677842016-10-27T23:52:03Z2016-10-27T23:52:03ZWhat will consumers gain from research into complementary medicines?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143405/original/image-20161027-11275-wdgqfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Consumers want to know if their complementary medicines are safe and effective. But are links between science and manufacturers the answer?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com.au</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/swisse-and-csiro-sign-multimilliondollar-research-deal-20161025-gsaq6a.html">new multimillion dollar deal</a> between Swisse Wellness and CSIRO has raised questions about the integrity of Australia’s premier scientific research organisation and the motivations behind the deal. Another important question is whether consumers will benefit from such partnerships.</p>
<p>Swisse manufactures complementary and alternative medicines, which are <a href="https://nccih.nih.gov/research/statistics/2007/camsurvey_fs1.htm">widely</a> used by <a href="https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2006/184/1/continuing-use-complementary-and-alternative-medicine-south-australia-costs-and">different populations</a>. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9605899">Research has shown</a> people like complementary medicines because they find natural alternatives to be in line with their values and beliefs.</p>
<p>Complementary or natural medicines have often been around for centuries, but <a href="http://theconversation.com/do-over-the-counter-weight-loss-supplements-work-53167">frequently research supporting their efficacy</a>, particularly for the treatment of obesity, is weak or lacking.</p>
<h2>Are alternative therapies and science a good mix?</h2>
<p>Although complementary medicines have received <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-01/supplements-linked-to-at-least-6-australian-organ-transplants/7207472">a lot of attention</a> recently due to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4848993/">safety risks</a>, there are a number of complementary medicines that are beneficial for physical health conditions.</p>
<p>Some complementary medicines show potential but require further investigation on a larger scale and over a longer time period. One such example are capsaicinoids, the active components in chilli peppers, <a href="http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v40/n8/full/ijo2015253a.html">which has been shown</a> to have a biologically plausible mechanism of action for weight loss. But rigorous studies with bigger sample sizes are needed to evaluate <a href="http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v40/n8/full/ijo201682a.html">how effective it is long-term</a> and whether the benefits outweigh the risks. </p>
<p>Likewise, <a href="https://www.hindawi.com/journals/njos/2014/674684/">ginger extract and gingerols</a> show potential for preventing type 2 diabetes but must be investigated further in more human studies. Fibre supplements appear to have the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23505169">best supporting evidence</a> and best potential so far for the management of obesity and associated metabolic disease.</p>
<p>There are also a range of natural medicines <a href="https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2002/176/10/effectiveness-complementary-and-self-help-treatments-depression?0=ip_login_no_cache%3D12ed3c6e9462369977a72dbb31847ec7">that show potential</a> for improving mental health conditions. Curcumin, which is the active ingredient of the Indian spice turmeric, has been compared in head-to-head studies with the antidepressant fluoxetine. It has been shown to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23832433">work as well as the pharmaceutical drug</a>, in proof-of-concept research. Similar findings have been shown with extracts from the spice <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17174460">saffron</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10759336">St John’s wort extract</a>, although definitive research is needed. </p>
<p>But there’s also a significant number of complementary medicines with no proven efficacy or often the data that supports their claims has come from <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2010.185/abstract">poor quality studies</a> with small sample sizes.</p>
<p>There’s also the potential for deception when manufacturers of alternative medicines use research evidence to back up claims for products that may contain similar ingredients to products tested for efficacy, but aren’t in fact the same. A deal like this provides Swisse with the opportunity to <strong>further validate</strong> their specific products.</p>
<h2>People are taking it, so we need to know if it works</h2>
<p>Complementary medicines have shown some potential in treating physical and mental illnesses but rigorous research is desperately needed.</p>
<p>Deals like this one between Swisse Wellness and CSIRO have the potential to further address the gap in information where complementary and alternative medicines are concerned. But this must be on the basis this research is objective and peer reviewed.</p>
<p>In a challenging funding environment, industry support is playing an even greater role but there is a risk of bias when the research is not conducted independent of the industry partner or when results are not disseminated to the public.</p>
<p>Collaborations between industry and leading institutions should be encouraged to support research and development into complementary medicines around product safety and the evidence supporting their claims, so long as the research undertaken adheres to strict academic standards.</p>
<p>Complementary medicine may have a greater role to play, especially when taking into consideration the fact people like to take it, and they stick to it. The continuation of good quality research will tell us if the money spent on complementary medicines is money wasted or well spent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Fuller has received research grants for clinical trials funded by Australian Egg Corporation, Arnotts Biscuits, SOHO Flordis International Research, Sanofi-Aventis, Novo Nordisk, Allergan, Roche products, MSD, and GlaxoSmithKline.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colman Taylor is an employee of Optum which provides consultancy services for pharmaceutical and medical device companies and the Australian Government. He has previously received government funding in the form of a NHMRC PhD scholarship and is listed as an investigator on NHMRC Project Grants. He is a member of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Australia Chapter Committee. </span></em></p>A new multimillion dollar deal between Swisse Wellness and CSIRO has raised questions about the integrity of Australia’s premier scientific research organisation and the motivations behind the deal.Dr Nicholas Fuller, Research Fellow, Clinical Trials Development & Analysis, University of SydneyColman Taylor, Research Fellow, Critical Care & Trauma Division & Conjoint Senior Lecturer, Sydney Medical School, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/674472016-10-27T00:51:27Z2016-10-27T00:51:27ZPitting mozzies against mozzies to stop the spread of disease<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142973/original/image-20161024-28420-1o2tc0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cages full of hand reared yellow fever mosquitoes await research (or possibly release)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cameron Webb, NSW Health Pathology/University of Sydney</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mosquitoes and the burden of disease they cause continue to weigh down many communities around the world. Despite their fragile appearance, mosquitoes continue to resist our best efforts to eliminate them. We’ve drained and polluted their wetland homes, and we’ve filled the skies with clouds of insecticides, but still they persist.</p>
<p>There is no reason why mosquito-borne disease won’t continue to spread in the decades ahead. While <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-climate-change-to-blame-for-outbreaks-of-mosquito-borne-disease-39176">climate change, urbanisation and globalisation</a> will all influence future mosquito-borne disease risks, some of our current control products are also losing their potency.</p>
<p>In many ways, our efforts to control mosquitoes have also been our undoing. We constantly underestimate the resilience of mosquitoes. The more insecticides we use to try and kill mosquitoes, the greater the likelihood they will <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aen.12186/full">develop resistance to these chemicals</a>. We need to look at alternative ways to control mosquitoes, and a new project pitting mosquitoes against mosquitoes is being trialled in Australia.</p>
<h2>Bugging the mosquito</h2>
<p>While there are thousands of mosquito species worldwide (<a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/book/6391/">over 300 in Australia alone</a>), the yellow fever mosquito (<em>Aedes aegypti</em>) is of greatest concern when it comes to outbreaks of dengue, chikungunya and Zika viruses. Second on the list is the Asian tiger mosquito (<em>Aedes albopictus</em>), a severe pest that also transmits these viruses. These <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-mosquito-threats-shift-risks-from-our-swamps-to-our-suburbs-56350">two exotic mosquitoes</a> have proven great at invading the world, spreading outwards to live with us in our cities. And they do love biting people.</p>
<p>It is important to remember that only female mosquitoes bite in pursuit of blood. Male mosquitoes do not, feeding only on nectar.</p>
<p>New approaches using an insect-specific bacteria have been developed that can sabotage mosquito populations. This works by either disrupting their reproduction or blocking their ability to transmit pathogens.</p>
<p>Scientists have concentrated their research on a naturally occurring insect bacteria, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aen.12068/full"><em>Wolbachia</em></a>.</p>
<p><em>Wolbachia</em> doesn’t naturally infect all mosquitoes. However, studies have shown female mosquitoes infected in a laboratory with <em>Wolbachia</em> pass the infection through to their eggs. Then when males infected with the bacteria mate with uninfected females, the female’s eggs do not hatch. The reasons for this <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fighting-mosquitoes-with-mosquitoes/">are not yet fully understood</a> but is known as “cytoplasmic incompatibility”.</p>
<p>Male <em>Wolbachia</em>-infected mosquitoes reared in the laboratory can be released into the field. As females only mate once, each successful mating results in no eggs hatching in the next generation. Therefore, the mosquito population shrinks over time. </p>
<p>Given these frisky male mosquitoes are better at finding female mosquitoes than we are with our insecticides, this approach could be a winner. It avoids increasing the risks of insecticide resistance and reduces the risks of other species in the area being <a href="https://entomologytoday.org/2015/03/23/wolbachia-bacteria-can-control-mosquitoes-with-fewer-chemicals/">impacted by insecticides</a>.</p>
<h2>How would this beat disease?</h2>
<p>Trials that use males carrying this bacteria to suppress mosquito populations of the Asian tiger mosquito are now occurring in the <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/us-reviews-plan-to-infect-mosquitoes-with-bacteria-to-stop-disease-1.19967">USA</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/24/sterile-mosquitoes-released-in-china-to-fight-dengue-fever">China</a>. Singapore recently began its first trials <a href="http://www.nea.gov.sg/public-health/environmental-public-health-research/wolbachia-technology/project-wolbachia-singapore">releasing bacteria-infected male yellow fever mosquitoes</a> throughout their high-rise apartments in an effort to study and remove mosquito populations that have proven tricky to control.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.eliminatedengue.com/program">Eliminate Dengue</a> group from Monash University is also using this type of bacteria for population replacement of the yellow fever mosquito. In their novel approach, once the bacteria is established in the population of mosquitoes, dengue, Zika and chikungunya viruses cannot infect the mosquito, making the insect population resistant to transmission. Releases of these mosquitoes have been underway in northern Australia for more than five years, and the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-27/zika-eliminate-dengue-project-to-expand-after-qld-success/7969038">results are very promising</a>. There are plans to expand the approach to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/26/mosquitos-infected-wolbachia-bacteria-zika-virus">South America</a>. </p>
<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>These new ways forward seem to offer a choice between using this common bacteria for either population suppression or replacement. The great benefit is that all these approaches use mosquitoes against mosquitoes.</p>
<p>While early successes of laboratory and field trials are already coming in, these small-scale and well-funded research projects may not reflect the reality of what is required in the long-term. How can we “scale up” these approaches to deploy them across the many major urban centres suffering from outbreaks of dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases?</p>
<p>This is where the <a href="https://blog.verily.com/2016/10/introducing-debug-project.html">Debug Project</a> comes in. A newly announced partnership between Verily (formerly <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/alphabets-life-sciences-business-has-a-new-name-verily/">Google Life Sciences</a>) and CSIRO, together with the University of Queensland and James Cook University, sets out to investigate how effective the release of <em>Wolbachia</em>-infected male mosquitoes is for mosquito control. Most importantly, the project will also be developing new technologies for the cost-effective mass rearing of mosquitoes. This is a critical step in being able to apply this approach to major cities impacted by mosquito-borne disease.</p>
<p>The early stages of the project will involve scientists releasing laboratory reared male mosquitoes and following them to see where and how far they fly, and how successfully they can track down and mate with local female mosquitoes. As well as demonstrating that this approach can actually reduce the overall mosquito population, the research will fill many of the gaps in our understanding of male mosquito biology. </p>
<p>The one thing we know is critical to upscaling any of these approaches is strong engagement with the local community. Without community support and participation, these projects are primed for failure. So, how would you feel about scientists releasing millions of “bacteria-infected male mosquitoes” in your neighbourhood? As the swathes of new non-biting males buzz around you and your house searching for females, please – don’t get out the bug spray.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67447/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cameron Webb and the Department of Medical Entomology, NSW Health Pathology, have been engaged by a wide range of insect repellent and insecticide manufacturers to provide testing of products and provide expert advice on mosquito biology. Cameron has also received funding from local, state and federal agencies to undertake research into mosquito-borne disease surveillance and management</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nigel Beebe works for University and the CSIRO and receives funding from state governments, (WA Health), national (NHMRC), and international (National Institutes of Health, USA and Verily) funding bodies to carry our research on mosquito biology and control.
</span></em></p>Upscaling the success of emerging mosquito control technologies relies on automating the rearing and release of millions of mosquitoes. Australia is to become the testing ground for a novel strategy.Cameron Webb, Clinical Lecturer and Principal Hospital Scientist, University of SydneyNigel Beebe, Associate professor, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/677172016-10-26T19:09:43Z2016-10-26T19:09:43ZState of the Climate 2016: Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143258/original/image-20161026-11247-jb5p4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia&#39;s oceans are heating up. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rikpiks/10457283614/in/photolist-gW5j6m-pSisgK-jgSqrW-jjRey6-aT7MYx-kYPtCh-dPV7xK-pNvUW9-anzSAv-ixZZJ4-kYMR61-dmQbFs-j94s4a-dwtUpU-dKeVmx-rxBwdE-dKvc7J-d1Q6a7-m4oQYd-E4nwgS-kYN11X-kYLCre-q76cPy-o1UVcq-CQYQGk-b8fY8R-kYMCF1-rdST4W-nM8Wpx-Jmm7QN-nLFhx9-aUfgDp-3baHjy-D1k6J6-jmGABh-oF7Cfe-pY38X4-o9Nefz-8X22tF-dV9YZ6-kYMXni-kYQru7-egpWth-e5UAur-ptfsrc-kYNUKe-bmbzNE-e24jJj-e31QCB-prC9JK">Richard Rydge/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate">Australian Bureau of Meteorology</a> and <a href="http://www.csiro.au/state-of-the-climate">CSIRO</a> have released their fourth biennial State of the Climate Report.</em></p>
<p>State of the Climate 2016 provides an update on the changes and long-term trends in Australia’s climate. The report’s observations are based on the extensive climate monitoring capability and programs of CSIRO and the Bureau, which provide a detailed picture of variability and trends in Australia’s marine and terrestrial climates. The science underpinning State of the Climate informs impact assessment and planning across all sectors of the economy and the environment.</p>
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<p>One of the report’s key observations is carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. A key component of global CO₂ monitoring is the joint Bureau and CSIRO atmospheric monitoring station in Cape Grim, Tasmania, one of three premier global baseline monitoring stations in the world, along with Mauna Loa in Hawaii and Alert in Nunavut, Canada.</p>
<p>CO₂ concentrations at Cape Grim passed through 400 parts per million <a href="https://theconversation.com/southern-hemisphere-joins-north-in-breaching-carbon-dioxide-milestone-59260">for the first time in May 2016</a>, and global concentrations are now at their highest levels in the past two million years.</p>
<p>It takes time for the climate system to warm in response to increases in greenhouse gases, and the historical emissions over the past century have locked in some warming over the next two decades, regardless of any changes we might make to global emissions in that period. Current and future global emissions will, however, make a difference to the rate and degree of climate change in the second half of the 21st century.</p>
<p>State of the Climate focuses on current climate trends that are likely to continue into the near future. This acknowledges that climate change is happening now, and that we will be required to adapt to changes during the next 30 years.</p>
<p>While natural variability continues to play a large role in Australia’s climate, some long-term trends are apparent. The terrestrial climate has warmed by around 1℃ since 1910, with an accompanying increase in the duration, frequency and intensity of extreme heat events across large parts of Australia. There has been an increase in extreme fire weather, and a lengthening of the fire season in most fire-prone regions since the 1970s.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143261/original/image-20161026-11236-1cobkl3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143261/original/image-20161026-11236-1cobkl3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">Annual mean temperature changes across Australia since 1910.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State of the Climate 2016</span></span>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143265/original/image-20161026-11256-16y0a9j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143265/original/image-20161026-11256-16y0a9j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trends from 1974 to 2015 in annual 90th percentile of daily Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) at 38 climate reference locations. Trends are in FFDI points per decade and larger circles represent larger trends. Filled circles represent statistically significant trends. Trends are upward (in red), except for Brisbane airport (in blue).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State of the Climate 2016</span></span>
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<p>Observations also show that atmospheric circulation changes in the Southern Hemisphere have led to an average reduction in rainfall across parts of southern Australia. </p>
<p>In particular, May–July rainfall has reduced by around 19% since 1970 in the southwest of Australia. There has been a decline of around 11% since the mid-1990s in April–October rainfall in the continental southeast. Southeast Australia has had below-average rainfall in 16 of the April–October periods since 1997.</p>
<p>Australia’s oceans have also warmed, with sea surface temperature increases closely matching those experienced on land. This warming affects both the marine environment and Australia’s terrestrial climate, due to the large influence of surrounding oceans on our weather systems. Sea levels have risen around Australia, which has the potential to amplify the effects of high tides and storm surges.</p>
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<span class="caption">Trends in sea surface temperature in the Australian region from 1950 to 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State of the Climate 2016</span></span>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Estimates of the change in ocean heat content over the full ocean depth, from 1960 to present. Shading provides an indication of the confidence range of the estimate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State of the Climate 2016</span></span>
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<p>The report has new findings compared to State of the Climate 2014.</p>
<p>Significantly, we report that warming in the global oceans now extends to at least 2,000 metres below the surface. These observations are made possible by the Argo array of global floats that has been monitoring ocean temperatures over the past decade. When we talk about the climate system continuing to warm in response to historical greenhouse gas emissions, that is almost entirely due to ongoing ocean warming, which these observations show is now steadily in train.</p>
<p>The other new inclusion is the science of extreme event attribution.</p>
<p>In the past five years, an increasing number of studies, using both statistical and modelling techniques, have quantified the role of global warming in individual extreme events. This complements previous science which partly attributes a change in the frequency of extreme weather, such as an increase in the number of heatwaves, to global warming.</p>
<p>In Australia, this includes studies that used the Bureau’s Predictive Ocean Atmosphere Model for Australia (POAMA) to essentially predict observed extreme events in a modelled climate with and without an enhanced greenhouse effect. </p>
<p>In particular, studies of record heat experienced during Spring in 2013 and 2014 have shown that the observed high temperatures received an extra contribution from background global warming.</p>
<p>These studies are an initial step towards understanding how climate change could affect the dynamics of the climate and weather system. In turn, this work provides greater intelligence for those managing climate risks.</p>
<p><em>State of the Climate 2016 can be read on either the <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate">Bureau</a> or <a href="http://www.csiro.au/state-of-the-climate">CSIRO</a>‘s websites. The online report includes an extensive list of references and useful links.</em></p>
<p><em>Watch the <a href="https://youtu.be/2MIlFNQniYI">State of the Climate 2016 summary video</a>.</em> </p>
<p><em>CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the Department of the Environment and Energy have provided a comprehensive portal for climate projection science, data and information called <a href="http://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/en/">Climate Change in Australia</a>. This website includes regional climate projections, a publication library, guidance material and a range of interactive tools.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karl Braganza is the manager of the Climate Monitoring Section in the Bureau of Meteorology&#39;s Environment and Research Division. The Bureau of Meteorology provides Australians with environmental intelligence for their safety, sustainability, well-being and prosperity. Our weather, climate and water services include observations, alerts, warnings and forecasts for extreme events.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Rintoul works for CSIRO. He receives funding from the Australian Climate Change Science Program and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre.</span></em></p>The new State of the Climate report outlines Australia's rising temperatures and its regional rainfall declines - and the trends that are locked in for the coming few decades due to greenhouse emissions.Karl Braganza, Manager, Climate Monitoring Section, Australian Bureau of MeteorologySteve Rintoul, Research Team Leader, Marine & Atmospheric Research, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/654342016-09-16T05:04:25Z2016-09-16T05:04:25ZAttacks on renewable energy policy are older than the climate issue itself<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-renewable-energy-agency-saved-but-with-reduced-funding-experts-react-65334">recent battles</a> over the budget of the <a href="http://arena.gov.au/">Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA)</a>, and before that over the <a href="https://theconversation.com/governments-ret-compromise-guarantees-uncertainty-for-renewables-41524">size of the Renewable Energy Target</a>, are the latest skirmishes in a long-running war over support for technologies that harvest Australia’s abundant wind and solar resources.</p>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly, the conflict even predates the popular awareness of climate change, which is generally <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html?pagewanted=all">dated to 1988</a>.</p>
<p>UNSW Australia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mark-diesendorf-226">Mark Diesendorf</a> has <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Greenhouse-Solutions-Sustainable-Energy-Diesendorf/dp/0868409731">described</a> how in early 1983 he and his colleagues had identified an ideal site in northern Tasmania for a wind farm. They presented their proposal to Labor’s newly appointed resources minister, Peter Walsh. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We submitted a proposal that the federal government fund a demonstration wind farm and assist in establishing a local wind generator manufacturing industry in the region, which was suffering from high unemployment. The next day, Senator Walsh announced that a northwest Tasmanian wind energy project could be a part of a development package, if the Commonwealth was successful in the High Court challenge to the construction of the Gordon-below-Franklin dam.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Commonwealth won its High Court battle, but the wind industry did not get its windfall. As Diesendorf recalls:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The federal government did not implement our proposal. It was soon obvious that the coal lobby, which was already very strong in the Department of Resources, had succeeded in turning the minister against wind power.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the same time, CSIRO, a world leader in several areas of renewables, closed down all of its renewable energy research. In Diesendorf’s view this was brought on by powerful coal interests within CSIRO. In the absence of deathbed confessions by those who made the decisions, Diesendorf’s suspicions can’t be proved correct, but renewables did indeed disappear from CSIRO’s research agenda and annual reports from that time.</p>
<p>Once climate change hit the headlines, things changed – a little. In 1990 the Hawke government established the <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/581368?c=people">Energy Research and Development Corporation (ERDC)</a> and launched a National Energy Efficiency Program. Meanwhile, <a href="http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2606334">research commissioned by the Victorian government</a> found that renewable energy, paired with energy-efficiency measures, could save A$3.14 billion a year by 2005, create almost 14,000 jobs, boost economic productivity by A$800 million a year, and cut greenhouse emissions into the bargain. </p>
<p>But privatisation took hold in Victoria, and the Keating government in Canberra seemed indifferent at best. In 1994, green groups including the Australian Conservation Foundation <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gmvobC1rqycC&amp;pg=PA170&amp;lpg=PA170&amp;dq=carbon+levy+1994+australian+conservation+foundation&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=16QYhppXNe&amp;sig=JS1IUxZGayuK-9BwT-uG-TickLw&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiovJHXlY_PAhUJCcAKHTVTBtIQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&amp;q=carbon%20levy%201994%20australian%20conservation%20foundation&amp;f=false">called</a> for a carbon levy to provide funds for renewable energy. Their request was ignored.</p>
<h2>Renewables back on target</h2>
<p>In 1996 the new Howard government disbanded Bob Hawke’s ERDC and energy efficiency program. In late 1997, in the run-up to the Kyoto climate summit, John Howard announced a new Renewable Energy Target (RET). </p>
<p>Greens leader Bob Brown was <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=frfUBwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA104&amp;lpg=PA104&amp;dq=PM%E2%80%99s+Greenhouse+Package+%E2%80%93+18%25+Increase!+Media+Release,+Australian+Senate&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=tciPw-W6VR&amp;sig=MlCCngCr_AZRz-CN3ctYime7kbg&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwj5xLPoko_PAhVJIMAKHd0TD_wQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&amp;q=PM%E2%80%99s%20Greenhouse%20Package%20%E2%80%93%2018%25%20Increase!%20Media%20Release%2C%20Australian%20Senate&amp;f=false">underwhelmed</a>. He pointed out that the scheme’s A$65 million over five years was less than the A$75 million that had been axed the year before, while the target of an extra 2% of electricity from renewables (making a total of 11% including existing large-scale hydro electricity generation) fell short of the ambition shown by other nations. Britain, for instance, was aiming for 20% by 2010.</p>
<p>The RET finally came into place in 2001, after the fossil fuel lobby <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223337855_Australia's_Mandatory_Renewable_Energy_Target_MRET_an_assessment">succeeded in getting it watered down</a>, and was subjected to constant reviews. </p>
<p>Infamously, at a secret meeting whose minutes were leaked, the then energy minister, Ian MacFarlane, lamented to the chief executives of companies like BHP and Rio that the RET was working too well – renewables were <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1194166.htm">growing too fast</a>. </p>
<p>In the run-up to the 2004 Energy White Paper, the renewables industry had hired well-connected lobby firm Crosby Textor (yes, Crosby as in Lynton Crosby) in a bid to get the RET raised to as much as 10%. </p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/burying-the-problem/2005/07/29/1122144018763.html">Age journalist Richard Baker</a>, a Liberal backbencher warned the renewables advocates that “you guys are stuffed”. And so it came to pass – the white paper spruiked carbon capture and storage, not renewables.</p>
<p>In the white paper’s aftermath, CSIRO boss Geoff Garrett announced that the organisation would be <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/csiro-to-focus-on-coalfriendly-technologies/2006/01/31/1138590483002.html">reducing its renewables research and instead focusing on “clean coal” technologies</a> such as coal gasification and carbon capture and storage.</p>
<p>Months later, a draft copy of an August 2005 CSIRO report describing solar thermal technology as “the only renewable technology that can make deep cuts in greenhouse emissions” was <a href="https://newmatilda.com/2007/11/15/old-king-coal/">leaked to The Canberra Times</a>. Before the leak, sources claimed the report had been “passed around like a political hot potato” with no date set for its release. It was eventually released to the public later that year.</p>
<h2>Bloody public battles</h2>
<p>Since 2007 the battles have been more public and even bloodier. An attempt to harmonise (and perhaps increase) different state and federal targets (all with different baselines, target years and amounts) was a dispiriting process. This was due in part, it seems, to <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v67y2014icp128-135.html">federal bureaucratic intransigence and arrogance</a>.</p>
<p>The major changes have been an increase in the renewables target, split into large-scale (wind farms, solar farms and the like) and small-scale (mostly rooftop solar). That increased target was of course subjected to <a href="https://theconversation.com/renewable-energy-deal-gives-no-certainty-over-coming-decades-42329">significant watering down by the Abbott government</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the two agencies that were set up to support renewable energy have also come under attack. The Greens, whose support was a life-and-death issue for the Gillard government, had managed to insist on the creation of ARENA and the <a href="http://www.cleanenergyfinancecorp.com.au/">Clean Energy Finance Corporation</a>. </p>
<p>Between them, these two organisations were designed to ensure funding both for basic research and development and for commercialisation of the resulting technologies, thereby smoothing the path for renewables to enter the electricity sector. </p>
<p>The attacks on these organisations have helped <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-has-investment-in-renewable-energy-projects-stalled-34197">create investor uncertainty in renewables</a>. Efforts to close them down ultimately failed, so the Abbott government switched to changing their terms of reference. The Turnbull government has continued this, along with salami-slicing ARENA’s budget. </p>
<p>This investment uncertainty, deliberately created, is a kind of “divestment campaign” against renewables. It can also be seen as a way of provoking an “investment strike”. </p>
<p>Whereas the mining industry threatened to take its investment dollars elsewhere while fighting Kevin Rudd’s proposed Resources Super-profits Tax in 2010, in this case, the supporters of the status quo energy system are hoping to dissuade external investors from coming to Australia. Thus do incumbents defend their patch.</p>
<p>Australia is famously the “lucky country”. But of course, Donald Horne <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/09/08/1125772645916.html">meant it ironically</a>, believing that the country was richly endowed with resources but “run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck”.</p>
<p>Given what we know of the trajectory and probable impacts of climate change, nobody, surely, will be able to be claim surprise as the future arrives.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was amended on September 19, 2016, to replace the phrase “powerful coal and nuclear energy interests” with “powerful coal interests” in the passage describing the cessation of CSIRO’s renewable energy research in the early 1980s.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Hudson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Skirmishes over funding for renewable energy research are just the latest battle in a saga that stretches back to the early 1980s – years before the public became widely aware of the climate threat.Marc Hudson, PhD Candidate, Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/637192016-08-10T20:05:10Z2016-08-10T20:05:10ZThe Galileo gambit and other stories: the three main tactics of climate denial<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133635/original/image-20160810-11853-deh1ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Galileo was right, but that doesn&#39;t mean his fans are.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Justus Sustermans/Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recently elected One Nation senator from Queensland, Malcolm Roberts, fervently rejects the established scientific fact that human greenhouse gas emissions cause climate change, invoking a <a href="https://theconversation.com/one-nation-climate-denial-and-those-jewish-bankers-62176">fairly familiar trope of paranoid theories</a> to propound this belief. </p>
<p>Roberts <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/aug/09/why-one-nation-senator-malcolm-roberts-demand-for-empirical-evidence-on-climate-change-is-misleading-bunk">variously claims</a> that the United Nations is trying to impose world government on us through climate policy, and that CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology are corrupt institutions that, one presumes, have fabricated the <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-the-climate-2015-global-warming-and-el-nino-sent-records-tumbling-63511">climate extremes</a> that we increasingly observe all over the world.</p>
<p>In the world of Malcolm Roberts, these agencies are marionettes of a “cabal” of “the major banking families in the world”. Given the parallels with <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/International_Jewish_conspiracy">certain strands of anti-Jewish sentiment</a>, it’s perhaps an unfortunate coincidence that Roberts has <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/one-nation-senatorelect-malcolm-roberts-wrote-bizarre-sovereign-citizen-letter-to-julia-gillard-20160804-gqlesa.html">reportedly relied on a notorious Holocaust denier</a> to support this theory.</p>
<p>It might be tempting to dismiss his utterances as conspiratorial ramblings. But they can teach us a great deal about the psychology of science denial. They also provide us with a broad spectrum of diagnostics to spot pseudoscience posing as science.</p>
<h2>The necessity of conspiracism</h2>
<p>First, the appeal to a conspiracy among scientists, bankers and governments is never just a slip of the tongue but a pervasive and necessary ingredient of the denial of well-established science. The tobacco industry <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=pyfy0144">referred to medical research on lung cancer</a> as being conducted by an “oligopolistic cartel” that “manufactures alleged evidence”. Some people accuse the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of <a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1860871_1860876_1861031,00.html">creating and spreading AIDS</a>, and much anti-vaccination content on the web is suffused with <a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/048605_vaccine_hysteria_totalitarian_nightmare_medical_fascism.html">conspiratorial allegations</a> of totalitarianism.</p>
<p>This conspiratorial mumbo jumbo inevitably arises when people deny facts that are supported by an overwhelming body of evidence and are no longer the subject of genuine debate in the scientific community, having already been tested thoroughly. As evidence mounts, there comes a point at which inconvenient scientific findings can only be explained away by recourse to huge, nebulous and nefarious agendas such as the World Government or Stalinism.</p>
<p>If you are addicted to nicotine but terrified of the effort required to give up smoking, it might be comforting instead to accuse medical researchers of being oligopolists (whatever that means). </p>
<p>Likewise, if you are a former coal miner, <a href="http://www.onenation.com.au/team/malcolmroberts">like Malcolm Roberts</a>, it is perhaps easier to accuse climate scientists of colluding to create a world government (whatever that is) than to accept the need to take coal out of our economy.</p>
<p>There is now <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v3i1.443">ample research</a> showing the link between science denial and conspiracism. This link is supported by <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01801.x">independent studies</a> from around the world.</p>
<p>Indeed, the link is so established that conspiracist language is one of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/one-nations-malcolm-roberts-is-in-denial-about-the-facts-of-climate-change-63581">best diagnostic tools</a> you can use to spot pseudoscience and science denial.</p>
<h2>The Galileo gambit</h2>
<p>How else can science dissenters attempt to justify their contrarian position? Another tactic is to appeal to heroic historical dissenters, the usual hero of choice being <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei">Galileo Galilei</a>, who overturned the orthodoxy that everything revolves around the Earth. </p>
<p>This appeal is so common in pseudoscientific quackery that it is known as the <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_gambit">Galileo gambit</a>. The essence of this argument is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They laughed at Galileo, and he was right.</p>
<p>They laugh at me, therefore I am right.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A primary logical difficulty with this argument is that plenty of people are laughed at <a href="http://www.skepdic.com/rumpology.html">because their positions are absurd</a>. Being dismissed by scientists doesn’t automatically entitle you to a Nobel Prize.</p>
<p>Another logical difficulty with this argument is that it implies that no scientific opinion can ever be valid unless it is rejected by the vast majority of scientists. Earth must be flat because no scientist other than a Googling Galileo in Gnowangerup says so. Tobacco must be good for you because only tobacco-industry operatives believe it. And climate change must be a hoax because only the heroic Malcolm Roberts and his <a href="http://www.galileomovement.com.au/galileo_movement.php">Galileo Movement</a> have seen through the conspiracy.</p>
<p>Yes, Senator-elect Roberts is the project leader of the Galileo Movement, which denies the scientific consensus on climate change, favouring instead the opinions of <a href="http://www.galileomovement.com.au/who_we_are.php">a pair of retired engineers and the radio personality Alan Jones</a>.</p>
<p>Any invocation of Galileo’s name in the context of purported scientific dissent is a red flag that you’re being fed pseudoscience and denial.</p>
<h2>The sounds of science</h2>
<p>The rejection of well-established science is often couched in sciency-sounding terms. The word “evidence” has assumed a particular prominence in pseudoscientific circles, perhaps because it sounds respectable and evokes images of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercule_Poirot">Hercule Poirot</a> tenaciously investigating dastardly deeds.</p>
<p>Since being elected, Roberts has again aired his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/aug/09/why-one-nation-senator-malcolm-roberts-demand-for-empirical-evidence-on-climate-change-is-misleading-bunk">claim</a> that there is “no empirical evidence” for climate change. </p>
<p>But “show us the evidence” has become the war cry of all forms of science denial, from <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&amp;newwindow=1&amp;client=firefox-b&amp;q=%22show+us+the+evidence%22+vaccinations&amp;oq=%22show+us+the+evidence%22+vaccinations&amp;gs_l=serp.3...143936.145654.0.146005.12.5.0.0.0.0.441.441.4-1.1.0....0...1c.1.64.serp..11.0.0.S-Nkz3umzM4">anti-vaccination activists</a> to <a href="http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1080905/pg1">creationists</a>, despite the existence of abundant evidence already.</p>
<p>This co-opting of the language of science is a useful rhetorical device. Appealing to evidence (or a lack thereof) seems reasonable enough at first glance. Who wouldn’t want evidence, after all? </p>
<p>It is only once you know the genuine state of the science that such appeals are revealed to be specious. <a href="https://theconversation.com/one-nations-malcolm-roberts-is-in-denial-about-the-facts-of-climate-change-63581">Literally thousands of peer-reviewed scientific articles and the national scientific academies of 80 countries</a> support the pervasive scientific consensus on climate change. Or, as the environmental writer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/may/10/environment.columnists">George Monbiot has put it</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is hard to convey just how selective you have to be to dismiss the evidence for climate change. You must climb over a mountain of evidence to pick up a crumb: a crumb which then disintegrates in the palm of your hand. You must ignore an entire canon of science, the statements of the world’s most eminent scientific institutions and thousands of papers published in the foremost scientific journals.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Accordingly, <a href="http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskyGEC16.html">my colleagues and I recently showed that in a blind test</a> – the gold standard of experimental research – contrarian talking points about climate indicators were uniformly judged to be misleading and fraudulent by expert statisticians and data analysts.</p>
<p>Conspiracism, the Galileo gambit and the use of sciency-sounding language to mislead are the three principal characteristics of science denial. Whenever one or more of them is present, you can be confident you’re listening to a debate about politics or ideology, not science.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephan Lewandowsky receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Royal Society, and the Psychonomic Society.</span></em></p>One Nation Senator-elect Malcolm Roberts lauds Galileo as a hero who turned scientific consensus on its head. But the 'Galileo gambit' is just one weapon in the climate conspiracists' arsenal.Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/635012016-08-04T03:05:50Z2016-08-04T03:05:50ZGovernment offers hope by telling CSIRO to reinvest in climate research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133024/original/image-20160804-12234-u45i79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Public funding is vital for programs like CSIRO&#39;s research vessel RV Investigator, which is too expensive for universities to run.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CSIRO</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The new instruction from Science Minister Greg Hunt to restore climate science as a “core activity” at Australia’s peak science body, the CSIRO, is a ray of hope for public good science. </p>
<p>Yesterday, Hunt <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/turnbull-government-order-csiro-uturn-towards-climate-science-20160803-gqk2pr.html">told Fairfax Media</a> he had issued a directive to CSIRO executives to add 15 jobs and A$37 million over ten years to CSIRO’s climate science research program. </p>
<p>The move follows months of uncertainty over CSIRO’s climate research capability, after chief executive Larry Marshall <a href="https://theconversation.com/csiro-is-poised-to-slash-climate-research-jobs-experts-react-54170">announced in February</a> that 350 jobs would be lost from CSIRO, including <a href="http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2016/Public-statement-Correcting-the-Public-Record-on-Changes-at-CSIRO">cuts to the oceans and atmosphere division</a>. </p>
<p>After widespread condemnation, losses to climate science capacity have reportedly been significantly reduced, although it is still unclear exactly how many and where the losses will be felt. </p>
<p>So what does the new development mean for CSIRO and Australia’s climate science? </p>
<h2>The role of CSIRO</h2>
<p>Reinstating 15 jobs is certainly a step in the right direction, even if they don’t make up for the previous cuts. But perhaps even more significant is the statement of intent – that the government wants climate science, and wants it to be done by CSIRO.</p>
<p>This is important because these government-funded agencies are well placed to carry out sustained observations and the accompanying development of climate models. Here in the university sector we focus mostly on “blue sky”, discovery-based research and training the next generation of researchers and PhDs. These are very important roles, but we can’t run marine research vessels or decades-long observation programs, because university research generally relies on three-year grant cycles.</p>
<p>The minister’s announcement is a very important cultural acknowledgement from the government that it needs to ensure that its publicly funded agencies underpin those important areas of climate monitoring and modelling. </p>
<h2>Key investments</h2>
<p>There are two key areas in which Australia needs to invest. </p>
<p>The first is sustained observations of the southern hemisphere’s oceans and atmosphere. As one of the few nations in the region with the capacity to monitor this vast area, Australia arguably has an obligation to make these measurements. </p>
<p>The second is developing next-generation climate models for Australia and the world. Northern hemisphere modelling groups, even though they do global modelling, have pressures from their own governments to focus on high-quality simulations of their own regions. Without Australia doing the same, there’s not the same pressure to have superbly accurate forecasts for this part of the world. </p>
<p>These two areas need to be secured via an appropriate scale of investment in climate science. Where this new money should go depends on exactly where the cuts have been made and what needs to be restored.</p>
<h2>Government steps up</h2>
<p>For some time now, CSIRO’s executive has been making moves away from public good research and towards an agenda of “innovation”. </p>
<p>While investment in public good climate research might not make you money this year or next, it can save vast amounts of money by, for example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/csiro-bosss-failed-logic-over-climate-science-could-waste-billions-in-taxes-54249">avoiding poor investment in infrastructure</a>. It is vital science that is needed to secure a resilient economy, a resilient environment and social well-being for all Australians.</p>
<p>This type of research is often undersold. Unfortunately, the culture in CSIRO over the past year seems to have been to sacrifice some of that public good science and focus on more lucrative research. This is important and beneficial science as well, but you can’t drop the public good.</p>
<p>Hunt’s new comments are important because they show the government is taking renewed responsibility for how CSIRO invests in research that helps the public.</p>
<p>This isn’t just about climate science; it’s about any area of public-good research that delivers what the community needs for societal well-being.</p>
<h2>Restoring reputations</h2>
<p>This is an important step towards restoring Australia’s international reputation in climate science. The science is always judged by the excellence of the work being done and papers published, which will take a while to materialise, but this announcement will be applauded around the world.</p>
<p>The cuts were condemned by <a href="http://www.australasianscience.com.au/sites/default/files/resources/public/AustraliasClimateResearchIsFarFromDone.pdf">thousands of international researchers</a> as well as the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-to-be-isolated-from-global-research-after-csiro-climate-cuts-wmo-20160208-gmoydi.html">World Climate Research Program</a> of the World Meteorological Organisation and the director of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/nasa-scientist-is-right-australia-needs-csiros-aerosol-monitoring-more-than-ever-59524">NASA-led atmospheric monitoring network</a>. </p>
<p>CSIRO’s international reputation in climate science has been going down the gurgler ever since <a href="https://csiropedia.csiro.au/mcdougall-trevor-john/">Royal Society Fellow Trevor McDougall</a>, one of the most influential oceanographers Australia has produced, was cut in 2012 to worldwide condemnation. The recent cuts went further. </p>
<p>We often criticise ministers for what they do wrong, but the latest announcement is a real cause for hope. Until now the government had taken a hands-off approach, arguing that CSIRO is an independent statutory body that shouldn’t be interfered with. </p>
<p>That’s now been thrown out. This is public money, and the government is saying we need to get public-good value from it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63501/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew England receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Science Minister Greg Hunt's call for CSIRO to do a U-turn on climate research is a welcome move after months of criticism, at home and abroad, of the agency's previous direction.Matthew England, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow; Deputy Director of the Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC); Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate System Science, UNSWLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627302016-07-20T20:06:22Z2016-07-20T20:06:22ZHow do we uncouple global development from resource use?<p>The world is using its natural resources at an ever-increasing rate. Worldwide, annual extraction of primary materials – biomass, fossil fuels, metal ores and minerals – tripled between 1970 and 2010. People in the richest countries now consume up to ten times more resources than those in the poorest nations. </p>
<p>Clearly, if the developing world is to enjoy a similar standard of living to those in the developed world, this cannot continue. We need to break the link between global economic development and primary resource consumption.</p>
<p>Over the past few days, nations have been <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/hlpf">meeting</a> in New York to discuss the United Nations’ <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/#">Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)</a>, which aim to “promote prosperity while protecting the planet”.</p>
<p>Today the meeting sees the launch of an <a href="http://unep.org/documents/irp/16-00169_LW_GlobalMaterialFlowsUNEReport_FINAL_160701.pdf">international report</a> coordinated by CSIRO and the <a href="http://www.unep.org/">UN Environment Program</a>. The report lists several ways in which the world can maintain economic growth while reducing its primary material use – ending the pattern that has driven world economic growth over the past four-and-a-half decades.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131203/original/image-20160720-31151-1fshmkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131203/original/image-20160720-31151-1fshmkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Global resource use from 1970 to 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The importance of decoupling</h2>
<p>Decoupling economic growth from resource use is crucially important – especially when we consider our finding that not even the wealthiest countries have managed to stabilise or reduce their overall material consumption footprint. The only time this footprint was reduced was during the global financial crisis of 2008-09. It has since begun to grow again. </p>
<p>This suggests that there is no level of human well-being at which the demand for primary materials will level off – unless we make some fundamental changes to our economy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131205/original/image-20160720-31129-j8j9ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131205/original/image-20160720-31129-j8j9ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ‘material footprint’ (in tonnes of raw material per capita) of nations at different levels of the Human Development Index (HDI).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the turn of the century, as emerging economies like China have begun to industrialise and urbanise, they have used massive amounts of iron, steel, cement, energy and construction materials. While this has helped millions of people move out of poverty, huge infrastructure investments have also ratcheted up the demand for primary materials to unprecedented levels. </p>
<p>Surprisingly, this boom in global growth has not led to improvements in efficiency, despite the many technological advances along the way. The global economy uses more material per unit of GDP than it did in 2000. This is because production has shifted from material-efficient economies such as Japan, South Korea and Europe to less efficient ones like China, India and Southeast Asia.</p>
<p>Decoupling will create the space for developing countries to raise their standards of living while also achieving the SDG objectives. This won’t occur spontaneously; it requires well-designed policies, not to mention large public investments in research and development.</p>
<h2>New measures needed</h2>
<p>Past policy decisions that determine economic development, human well-being and environmental outcomes have often been informed by a small set of economic indicators.</p>
<p>In contrast, policies designed to achieve progress towards the SDGs will require new information about natural resource use and environmental impacts. The new report, compiled with help from my colleagues in Austria, Germany and Japan, aims to provide data on current resource use, and on how these primary materials might be used more efficiently to produce goods and services.</p>
<p>We have found that while dramatic increases in the consumption of fossil fuels, metals and other materials threaten to intensify the effects of climate change, increase pollution and harm wildlife, there are also large opportunities to embrace more sustainable practices. This in turn would also lead to economic benefits and improved well-being.</p>
<p>Here are some of the report’s recommendations for maintaining economic growth while streamlining resource use, split across the major sectors of the economy:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Construction and housing.</strong> Improved building materials, insulation and orientation of new buildings – together these can cut energy use in buildings by 80%. Meanwhile, using higher-strength steel in the construction of medium-density and high-rise buildings can save on the amount of construction material used. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Transport and mobility.</strong> Improved urban design, walkable cities, public transport, electric and hybrid vehicles, improved fuel efficiency in aviation, freight and private transport – all of these measures will deliver massive savings in materials, energy and greenhouse emissions. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Agriculture and food.</strong> Improved irrigation techniques; reduced fertiliser and pesticide use; reduced average consumption of meat and dairy; and reducing food loss and waste from its <a href="http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/">current level of more than 30%</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Heavy industry and energy.</strong> Besides embracing recycling and renewable energy, heavy industries such as steel, cement and paper can each draw on a range of new technologies, such as electric arc furnace improvements in the iron and steel industry.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Technology.</strong> Nano- and biotechnology will play increasingly important roles in sustainable production and consumption – for instance, through the creation of more durable products or the development of enzymes as industrial catalysts. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The report also recommends placing a price on primary materials at the point of extraction, as well as putting a price on carbon emissions. The proceeds of these levies should be invested in research and development in resource-intensive sectors of the economy, to find yet more ways to reduce overall consumption of materials.</p>
<p>Of course, increasing material efficiency can bring its own problems. The report recommends various policy initiatives to address these issues. Among these is shorter working hours to compensate for productivity gains, instead of salary increases alone, to avoid the rebound effect of higher overall consumption.</p>
<p>Lower-income countries will doubtless require more primary materials than they currently use, if they are to reach the same level of development as today’s wealthy countries. Expanding global demand for materials may contribute to local conflicts like those seen in areas where mining competes with agriculture and urban development. But the more we can curb the world’s resource growth, the more room there will be for people’s standards of living to grow too without surpassing planetary limits.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was written with the help of <a href="http://people.csiro.au/H/K/Karin-Hosking">Karin Hosking</a> from CSIRO’s Land and Water Flagship. More information on the data in the report is available from <a href="http://uneplive.unep.org">UNEP Live</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heinz Schandl receives funding from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). </span></em></p>The world's use of finite resources continues to rise as global development continues. Can we help poorer nations raise their standard of living without exhausting all of our raw materials?Heinz Schandl, Senior Science Leader, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/603812016-06-26T19:58:45Z2016-06-26T19:58:45ZHow Australia played the world's first music on a computer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127681/original/image-20160622-19752-1h52mfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Geoff Hill and Trevor Pearcey in 1952 with the CSIR Mk1, the world&#39;s first computer to make music.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://gallery.eng.unimelb.edu.au/computing-history/">University of Melbourne/MSE-CIS Heritage Collection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We don’t think twice about playing music via a computer – we have them in our pockets, and in our homes and offices, with music on tap. But playing music on a computer was once an almost unthinkable leap of the imagination and the most devilishly difficult programming challenge.</p>
<p>The world’s fourth digital computer was designed and built in Australia by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR, the precursor of the CSIRO). It started life as a dream in 1947, ran its first test program in 1949 and played music in 1950 or 1951.</p>
<p>Initially known as the CSIR Mark 1 – later renamed <a href="https://csiropedia.csiro.au/csirac-australias-first-computer/">CSIRAC</a> (the CSIR Automatic Computer) – it was built at the CSIR’s radiophysics division in Sydney.</p>
<p>CSIRAC was a very primitive computer by today’s standards. It was very slow (1,000 cycles per second); it did not have very much memory (about 2KB of RAM and 3KB of disk memory); it filled a room and; it had no display like a modern computer.</p>
<h2>Out of the hooter</h2>
<p>Most output from CSIRAC was via punched paper tape that was later converted to text on another machine. The only familiar output device was a speaker (called the hooter), and it was used to track the progress of a program. </p>
<p>Programmers would place a sound at the end of their program so they knew it had ended (this was known as a blurt), or they would program progress-indicator blurts into a program.</p>
<p>Despite being primitive, CSIRAC performed groundbreaking work, including running the calculations to find the centre of our galaxy in 1953, and for the engineering of our first skyscraper building.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125052/original/image-20160602-23298-191m4ol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125052/original/image-20160602-23298-191m4ol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">CSIRAC before it was put on display at Museum Victoria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Doornbusch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>CSIRAC was a serial computer, it passed digital bits around one at a time unlike the 32 or 64 bits passed around in parallel in modern computers. </p>
<p>The memory on the CSIRAC was mercury acoustic delay lines. That means a pulse would be put into the memory tube, it would travel to the other end of the tube and be recycled back to the front. In this way, many bits and digital words could be stored in one tube of mercury. There were about 20 memory tubes functional at any time. </p>
<p>A consequence of using mercury acoustic delay time memory was that each memory access took a different time. This would prove problematic for any time-critical application, such as playing music in real time.</p>
<h2>The music maker</h2>
<p>The first software engineer or programmer was the mathematician <a href="https://csiropedia.csiro.au/hill-geoffrey/">Geoff Hill</a>, who is something of an unsung hero of Australian computing. </p>
<p>Hill came from a very musical family; his mother was a music teacher, his sister a performer and he had perfect pitch. This is crucial, as the way CSIRAC created sounds was by sending raw pulses from the computer data bus to the speaker.</p>
<p>If casually programmed, these pulses would arrive at the speaker at somewhat random times, resulting in the blurting type of sound used by programmers to indicate points in the program’s execution. </p>
<p>Hill would have quickly realised that if he could get the pulses to arrive at a regular time, then he would get a steady pitch. Then, perhaps he could program the notes of a musical scale. </p>
<p>This was an exceedingly difficult task because each memory access took a different time, and the overall clock frequency was only 1,000 cycles a second. </p>
<p>But Hill managed this, and his musical knowledge was invaluable, although on at least one occasion he telephoned his mother late at night and asked her if some notes were in tune while holding the telephone receiver to the computer speaker.</p>
<p>Her response on the first occasion was to scold Hill for playing silly buggers with a comb and a piece of paper and annoying her late and night when his dinner was in the oven! She didn’t understand what was going on.</p>
<h2>A simple tune</h2>
<p>Hill programmed CSIRAC to play various popular tunes of the day, such as Colonel Bogey, Girl with Flaxen Hair and so on. This was natural as the programmers were not musical specialists and were not interested in what using a computer meant for the potential composition and performance of music. </p>
<p>The music was one of CSIRAC’s parlour tricks. <a href="http://csiropedia.csiro.au/McGee-Richard-Xavier/">Dick McGee</a> remembers it playing music when he started at the CSIRO in April 1951. At Australia’s first computing conference, on August 7-9, 1951, everyone was talking about it afterwards and it caused quite a stir.</p>
<p>The late <a href="https://csiropedia.csiro.au/pearcey-trevor/">Trevor Pearcey</a> led the team that created CSIRAC and he remembers its musical performances well, as recalls in the video interview from 1996, a couple of years before he died.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/slr75sLhOCs?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</figure>
<p>CSIRAC was thus the first computer in the world to play music. Sadly, none of the music it played was ever recorded. </p>
<h2>Change of plan at CSIRO</h2>
<p>There was some internal refocusing within the CSIRO and it was decided to concentrate on weather science and primary production rather than computation, leaving that to others and the commercial sector.</p>
<p>So it is not surprising that the CSIRO resisted the music being recorded at the time. However, it has now been faithfully reconstructed and can be heard again.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127991/original/image-20160624-30259-eft8as.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127991/original/image-20160624-30259-eft8as.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A reconstructed valve amplifier built to the original CSIRAC design to generate the correct pulse shapes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Doornbusch</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A team at The University of Melbourne, led by myself, built (valve) hardware to faithfully reconstruct CSIRAC’s pulse shapes, and software to be able to run the old programs. </p>
<p>After hand reading and entering the data from the old punched-paper program tapes, the programs were run with the reconstructed pulses and the music regenerated accurately. </p>
<p>The team even went to the trouble of sourcing a new speaker made within a few weeks of the original to play the music through. Museum Victoria very kindly let us put the speaker in the old cabinets to record the music being played so that it is as authentic as possible.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="7" data-image="" data-title="CSIRAC plays a music scale" data-size="118410" data-source="Paul Doornbusch" data-source-url="http://www.doornbusch.net/CSIRAC/mp3/01-Sydney-Scale.mp3" data-license="Author provided" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/432/01-sydney-scale.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</source></audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
CSIRAC plays a music scale.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.doornbusch.net/CSIRAC/mp3/01-Sydney-Scale.mp3">Paul Doornbusch</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span><span class="download"><span>116 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/432/01-sydney-scale.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="17" data-image="" data-title="CSIRAC plays Colonel Bogey" data-size="275981" data-source="Paul Doornbusch" data-source-url="http://www.doornbusch.net/CSIRAC/mp3/02-Colonel-Bogey.mp3" data-license="Author provided" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/430/02-colonel-bogey.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</source></audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
CSIRAC plays Colonel Bogey.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.doornbusch.net/CSIRAC/mp3/02-Colonel-Bogey.mp3">Paul Doornbusch</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span><span class="download"><span>270 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/430/02-colonel-bogey.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="18" data-image="" data-title="CSIRAC plays The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" data-size="296043" data-source="Paul Doornbusch" data-source-url="http://www.doornbusch.net/CSIRAC/mp3/03-Bonnie-Banks.mp3" data-license="Author provided" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/433/03-bonnie-banks.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
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<div class="audio-player-caption">
CSIRAC plays The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.doornbusch.net/CSIRAC/mp3/03-Bonnie-Banks.mp3">Paul Doornbusch</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span><span class="download"><span>289 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/433/03-bonnie-banks.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="18" data-image="" data-title="CSIRAC plays Auld Lang Syne" data-size="294371" data-source="Paul Doornbusch" data-source-url="http://www.doornbusch.net/CSIRAC/mp3/05-Auld-Lang-Syne.mp3" data-license="Author provided" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/434/05-auld-lang-syne.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</source></audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
CSIRAC plays Auld Lang Syne.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.doornbusch.net/CSIRAC/mp3/05-Auld-Lang-Syne.mp3">Paul Doornbusch</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span><span class="download"><span>287 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/434/05-auld-lang-syne.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p>Shortly after CSIRAC first played music, in 1951 the BBC recorded a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/K5T55FzeRAWtpJ9LuHiF0A">Ferranti Mark 1</a> computer <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7458479.stm">playing music</a> in Manchester, England. That is the oldest recording of a computer playing music.</p>
<p>When CSIRAC moved to the University of Melbourne in 1956, it continued to play music. The university’s mathematics professor <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cherry-sir-thomas-macfarland-9737">Tom Cherry</a> wrote a program so that anyone could punch a “score” or “pianola” tape for the computer to play without the intricacies of knowing how to program the hooter. </p>
<p>Professor Cherry’s instructions on how to use the music program still exist.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125056/original/image-20160603-23261-bl0ddb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125056/original/image-20160603-23261-bl0ddb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">CSIRAC music instructions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Doornbusch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A lost opportunity</h2>
<p>The most significant early developments in computer music and digital audio happened in the United States from the late 1950s at Bell Labs. </p>
<p>In 1957, the <a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/computer-graphics-music-and-art/15/222">acoustic researcher Max Mathews</a> had the foresight to see the potential of this technology. He wrote a program that allowed an IBM 704 mainframe computer to play a 17-second composition.</p>
<p>Despite the earlier musical work with CSIRAC in Sydney, it is Matthews who is often referred to as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/arts/music/max-mathews-father-of-computer-music-dies-at-84.html">the father of computer music</a>.</p>
<p>But the developments started in the 1950s have led to the most exciting musical adventure we have ever embarked on – the application of digital technology to the creation, making, listening and distribution of music.</p>
<p>When discussing the CSIRAC music reconstruction project with the original engineers who had worked on CSIRAC in Melbourne, I lamented that the then Melbourne-based composer <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/grainger-george-percy-6448">Percy Grainger</a> had not been introduced to CSIRAC.</p>
<p><a href="https://museumvictoria.com.au/csirac/programming/pthorne.aspx">Peter Thorne</a>, a former CSIRAC computer technician, told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We used to see him walk past the computation laboratory, we’d say, ‘There goes Percy Grainger’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I sighed. Grainger was Australia’s most adventurous composer of the day was a few metres away from a machine that could have realised some of his musical dreams. If he had met CSIRAC, some of the remarkable developments of combining computers and music could have been another Australian first.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Doornbusch occasionally receives funding from the Australia Council for the Arts for projects. He is author of the book The Music of CSIRAC: Australia&#39;s First Computer Music.</span></em></p>It might not sound like the best music in the world, but Australia was the first by a matter of months at playing a tune on a computer.Paul Doornbusch, Adjunct professor of computer science at The University of Melbourne and Associate Dean, Australian College of the Arts., University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/603672016-06-23T01:40:49Z2016-06-23T01:40:49ZHow CSIRO is turbocharging the world's largest radio telescopes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127055/original/image-20160617-11135-1n121uq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 500-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NAOC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world’s largest single-dish radio telescope, <a href="http://fast.bao.ac.cn/en/">FAST</a> (the Five hundred metre Aperture Spherical Telescope), is rapidly taking shape in China. </p>
<p>At 500 metres in diameter, it would only just fit under the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. </p>
<p>To put this into astronomical perspective, the Parkes Radio Telescope has a diameter of 64 metres, with a collecting area – the amount of surface that the radio waves can bounce off – of 3,216 m<sup>2</sup>.</p>
<p>FAST, on the other hand, has a collecting area of 196,000 m<sup>2</sup>, which is 61 times greater.</p>
<p>Radio waves raining down from the cosmos will bounce off this huge dish and into a receiver overhead, which is being built by CSIRO. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127464/original/image-20160621-16045-ypu9og.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127464/original/image-20160621-16045-ypu9og.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The CSIRO-built multibeam instrument being installed on the Arecibo telescope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Graeme Carrad</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To stay scientifically competitive, telescopes must have the latest technology. The telescope you see – the giant steel dish – will probably look much the same for decades. But behind the scenes, generation after generation of new instruments will be installed to analyse the incoming radio waves. </p>
<p>The continuous improvement of these instruments is what keeps a telescope current. The Parkes telescope, for instance, is now 10,000 times more sensitive than when it was first built due to improvements beyond the dish itself.</p>
<p>Instruments for radio telescopes aren’t bought off the shelf. Each telescope is different, and instruments are custom-made for the one they’ll be used on. </p>
<h2>Tuning in to the universe</h2>
<p>Radio astronomy is also a technically demanding field. The receivers are so sensitive, that they could pick up a mobile phone on Mars. We can even time the rotation of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/pulsars">pulsars</a> to 11 decimal places. Astronomers push to record transient events down to timescales of nanoseconds.</p>
<p>Technical capability and science goals evolve in tandem: astronomers ask for more than they have, pushing the engineering ever onward. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127495/original/image-20160621-13039-l6k5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127495/original/image-20160621-13039-l6k5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">An Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) antenna with a phased-array feed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CSIRO</span></span>
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<p>In CSIRO, that conversation happened at close quarters, with scientists and engineers mingling in the same tea-room. This frequent contact led to innovation that could not have taken place if the engineers had been working to meet “blue sky” science goals developed far away.</p>
<p>Telescope upgrades have been integrated with a strong research and development program. One we have kept going through the ups and downs of capital funding over the decades.</p>
<p>The receiver we’re building for China’s FAST telescope has grown from work we started decades ago. Traditionally, a single-dish telescope such as Parkes sees only one spot – one pixel – on the sky at any one time, and pictures must be built up by repeated scanning. </p>
<p>But we dramatically boosted its capabilities by developing a “multibeam” receiver that lets Parkes see several spots on the sky at once. </p>
<p>This receiver turbocharged Parkes, letting us scan the sky in less than a tenth of the usual time. It led Parkes to discover <a href="http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/F/Fast+Radio+Bursts">fast radio bursts</a> and hundreds of new galaxies hidden behind the Milky Way. </p>
<p>For the receiver on China’s FAST telescope, we’re providing proven technology rather than the very cutting edge. But it’s going into a telescope that’s even better than our one at Parkes. FAST will also search for pulsars, look for radio signals from extra-solar planets, and measure hydrogen in our own galaxy and tens of thousands of others. </p>
<h2>Beyond FAST</h2>
<p>The newest technology to speed up telescopes is phased-array feeds, which allow us to electronically synthesise a multipixel image of the sky. These feeds can “ignore” radio signals from satellites that would otherwise blind our receivers. We’ve used this technology on the <a href="http://www.atnf.csiro.au/projects/askap/index.html">Australian SKA Pathfinder</a> (<a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/square-kilometre-array">ASKAP</a>) in Western Australia.</p>
<p>The phased-array feeds have already produced some <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-images-from-askap-reveal-slices-through-space-27963">superb early science</a> during commissioning. There are more design improvements in the pipeline. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127498/original/image-20160621-12995-1r6s88u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127498/original/image-20160621-12995-1r6s88u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">​CSIRO’s ASKAP antennas at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, March 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Neal Pritchard</span></span>
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<p>Plus, in the last few months we’ve learned more about how to best use the feeds by running one on Parkes, ahead of installing it on the <a href="http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/en/effelsberg">Effelsberg telescope</a> in Germany. </p>
<p>In just a few years, ASKAP’s home – the <a href="http://www.atnf.csiro.au/projects/askap/site.html">Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory</a> – will also house 130,000 low-frequency dipoles – essentially television antennas – of the international Square Kilometre Array (<a href="http://www.ska.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx">SKA</a>). </p>
<p>We’re working with <a href="http://www.astron.nl/">ASTRON</a>, the leading astronomy organisation in the Netherlands, to deliver the technology that will let these dipoles (which don’t physically move) “look” in different directions. This will be based on a system we developed for ASKAP.</p>
<p>Radio astronomy is not a big industry, but its technologies are central ones in radio communication, as shown by the well-known example of WiFi, which was born from radio astronomy. Australia’s experience in this field is a clear example of how innovation happens in practice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60367/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas Bock works for CSIRO.</span></em></p>You can't just buy a radio telescope receiver off the shelf. So CSIRO has been hard at work building receivers for the world's largest telescopes using the very latest technology.Douglas Bock, Acting Director, Astronomy and Space Science, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/610942016-06-22T02:01:29Z2016-06-22T02:01:29ZInfographic: how much does Australia spend on science and research?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127642/original/image-20160621-13031-1p1hry1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">CSIRO has received significant cuts to its budget over the past several years.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David McClenaghan</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The election is rapidly approaching, and all major parties – <a href="https://www.liberal.org.au/our-plan/innovation-and-science-agenda">Liberal</a>, <a href="http://www.senatorkimcarr.com/labor_s_positive_vision_for_australia_s_science_future">Labor</a> and <a href="http://greens.org.au/research">Greens</a> – have now made announcements about their policies to support science and research.</em></p>
<p><em>But how are we doing so far? Here we look at the state of science and research funding in Australia so you can better appreciate the policies each party has announced.</em></p>
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<p>The latest <a href="http://www.oecd.org/innovation/inno/researchanddevelopmentstatisticsrds.htm">OECD figures</a> show that Australia does not fare well compared with other OECD countries on federal government funding research and development.</p>
<p>As a percentage of GDP, the government only spends 0.4% on research and development. This is less than comparable nations.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127064/original/image-20160617-11098-12n3se3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
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<p>But looking at total country spending on research and development, including funding by state governments and the private sector, the picture is not so bleak: here Australia sits in the middle among OECD countries.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127066/original/image-20160617-11135-asy0dx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
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<p>Over the years, there have been hundreds of announcements and new initiatives but this graph indicates that, in general, it has been a matter of rearranging the deck chairs rather than committing to strategic investments in research. </p>
<p>The Paul Keating Labor government made some investments. During the John Howard Liberal government’s years, there were ups and downs. The Kevin Rudd/Julia Gillard Labor governments were mostly up. And in Tony Abbott’s Liberal government, the graph suggests that it was mostly down with science. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127460/original/image-20160621-16064-10chpg9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
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<p>Over the past decade, there have been some minor changes in funding to various areas, although energy has received the greatest proportional increase.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>This pie chart reminds us that the higher education sector is a major provider of research and is highly dependent on government funding. It also tells us that business also conducts a great deal of research.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>The timeline below shows that the government does listen and respond when issues arise. It has recognised the importance of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme (<a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/ncris">NCRIS</a>), the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-australian-synchrotron-is-great-but-what-does-it-do-5704">Australian Synchrotron</a> and sustainable medical research funding by different initiatives. </p>
<p>But, sadly, one must remember that funding is effectively being shifted from one domain to another, and it has seldom been the case that significantly new commitments are made. The balance of red and blue shows how one hand gives while the other takes funding away.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127657/original/image-20160622-19783-14l828k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127657/original/image-20160622-19783-14l828k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<p>This useful graph highlights the fact that Australian Research Council (ARC) funding now amounts to little more than the National Health and Medical Research Council’s funding. </p>
<p>This is remarkable, given that the ARC funds all disciplines, including sciences, humanities and social sciences, while the NHMRC essentially focuses on human biology and health. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127658/original/image-20160622-19780-u1zjat.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127658/original/image-20160622-19780-u1zjat.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>This graphic also highlights the lack of any sustained funding strategy. The only clear trend is that the investment in the ARC has gradually declined and the NHMRC has grown. </p>
<p>This, in part, reflects the undeniable importance of health research. But it is also indicative of effective and coherent organisation and communication by health researchers. This has been more difficult to achieve in the ARC space with researchers coming from a vast array of disciplines. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127659/original/image-20160622-19786-kb4baj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127659/original/image-20160622-19786-kb4baj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Merlin Crossley works for the University of New South Wales and receives funding from the Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council. He is on the Trust of the Australian Museum, and the Boards of the Sydney Institute of Marine Science, UNSW Global, and UNSW Press, he is also an Editorial Board Member of The Conversation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les Field receives research funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the senior Executive of the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He is a Council Member and the Secretary for Science Policy for the Australian Academy of Science. He is a Director of Uniseed which is a company that invests in early stage technology and a director of ATPI which is an incubator for early stage companies. He is a Director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Centre.</span></em></p>How does Australia fare in science and research funding? Where have recent cuts been made? This infographic shows the state of science funding in Australia.Merlin Crossley, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education and Professor of Molecular Biology, UNSWLes Field, Secretary for Science Policy at the Australian Academy of Science, and Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, UNSWLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.